


Quiet Foxes

by Tjadis (aithne)



Series: Old Roads [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Adventure, Drama, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-28
Updated: 2010-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:24:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 108,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aithne/pseuds/Tjadis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shadows chase a mage and her companions to the Circle of Magi. But when they arrive, they will find more trouble than they imagine...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Drowning Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is the fourth _Old Roads_ novella, and it will make little sense if you haven't read the first three stories, which are available on my profile. Same caveats also apply; the setting and I are off in the deep woods together, and we're both a little worse for wear at this point. (It's got sticks in its hair and its trousers have holes. I have a wild and wondering expression on my face and a note in my hand that says _hon, you have a deadline on something else, what are you doing all the way out here?_) Also, I have drawn inspiration and a couple of quotes from callalili's wonderful "The Sundered Sword" which you should all read before you read this chapter in particular.
> 
> That said, onward, and enjoy!

_Cullen:_

The light from the dying fire threw strange, flickering shadows among the tall rocks that they camped between.

Fiann slept at his feet, curled tightly with her nose tucked beneath one hind leg. Next to him sat Jeseth, the largest of the Mabari that they traveled with. The dog sat with ears pricked towards the rocks and the farmland that lay beyond it, occasionally whuffing to himself. Everyone else slept; Cullen had volunteered to take strong watch tonight. It seemed that it was going to be a quiet night—unlike the six nights that had come before it.

Several weeks ago, when they were looking for darkspawn so that Jowan could complete the Joining, they'd had trouble finding any. That was, it appeared, because they had withdrawn and regrouped. The darkspawn were attacking farmholds south of Denerim, and for the last week their work as Grey Wardens had been twofold: to kill darkspawn, and to point frightened men and women to the local bann's castle after their houses were attacked and their fields fired. It was going to be a lean harvest in these parts, this year.

"It's not as bad as during the Blight, by a long shot," Kathil had said that afternoon, cleaning rotting blood off of her blade and grimacing. "But it's bad enough in its own way. I wish Leliana had come with us. Or I'd taken Alistair up on his offer to send people with us."

Cullen glanced over to where Kathil lay, her head on Zevran's chest and a blanket over them both. Beyond them, Jowan was rolled in his own blanket, a Mabari at his feet. On the other side of the fire, the Tranquil mage Shaw also slept, surrounded by the rest of the warhounds. Shadows distorted all of their faces, played strangely over Kathil's pale hair.

He had thought—hoped—that they would be to the Tower by now. The little bag he wore under his shirt was flat, empty of even the finest trace of lyrium dust. He could usually go a week between doses; he had recently been stretching it to a week and a half before the headaches and the itching would drive him to the pouch once more.

It had been fifteen days since his last dose.

He had said nothing. And he didn't even know _why_, except for the fact that the few times that the subject of his habit—addiction—had come up, the air had grown cold between him and Kathil. He'd thought that he could make his supply last until they reached the Tower. When he had survived the Joining, Warden-General Montclair had mentioned that the Wardens had a small supply of lyrium from the Templars, and were negotiating with the dwarven Assembly to get regular deliveries. "You are not the only full Templar we have ever welcomed into our ranks, and there will be more one day, surely," Montclair had said.

Only then they had gone to Waking Sea and Laurens had handed him over to Kathil and said _we wash our hands of him_. And even though he had taken up the task of guarding the mage with gratitude, there were still unfortunate things about being a Templar that evidently no mage liked to think about.

Such as the addiction that came with taking raw lyrium to strengthen his talent to seal the Veil.

The shadows among the rocks were twisting, here a fall of translucent hair, there the curve of a breast. The addiction was permanent, as far as Cullen knew. Those who tried to stop taking lyrium died. Which made it _doubly_ stupid that he hadn't told Kathil, or even Zevran. But he hadn't wanted to have even a chance of Jowan knowing that he wasn't operating at full capacity, and he had thought they would be to the Tower before the debt came due. He would have talked to them there.

Would have—

The shadows writhed.

Cullen closed his eyes.

_For I walk in the shadow of the unbeliever, and quail in the hard wind of its wings. Cleave me to you, oh Maker! How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long must I sing with no answer? _

There was heresy, and there was sin, and Cullen knew both.

Only now the demons had so much _more_ to torment him with, if they came. (The outline of a breast or a hip, a slim ankle sliding over rough stone, and it was not _real_ but closing his eyes didn't help.) He remembered. He _remembered_ as he had not for years, since the First Enchanter had laid hands on his head and made it all go away, go away so he could survive and serve—

_And what good has that service done you, knight?_ came a familiar voice that made his stomach roil and another part of him harden.

He was no longer a Templar. He was a Grey Warden, and the darkspawn taint burning in his blood should be enough to remind him of that.

_Part of you always will be a Templar. And that part belongs to us, knight of the Tower. _

This was a thing created in his mind. He was on the road, and the mage he loved and the elf he, well, enjoyed the company of (and if Cullen were honest with himself it was starting to feel a bit like more than that) were here. And Fiann, who was his, and who he belonged to in return.

_You have seen what she does. What she is capable of. Her temptations are ever so much worse than yours, my boy. _The words come at him, cooing, deceptively soft. _And she tempts you in turn. Brings you down to her level._ The voice became multitudes. _It is all a lie, little Templar, sweet small thing, delicious thing. She uses you._

Cullen was sweating, and he was sure that there was a flicker of violet light around him, the beginnings of a cage. The others had not survived. He had lived Maker knew how long among their rotting bodies, a demon who wore his mage's face speaking to him, tempting him. His mouth was filled with ashes.

_This is the closest I have ever come to knowing what it is to be holy,_ Kathil had said, once.

It was sin _and_ heresy, and as he opened his eyes the writhing shadows reached out and claimed him.

*****

_Zevran:_

At first, he was not certain why he had woken.

Zevran opened his eyes slightly, careful not to betray his waking. Kathil still slept against him. There was a low sound coming from near the fire—the grumbling growl of a warhound. A shadow moved in the camp.

On occasion, instinct served better than thought. Such as it was now, when the shadow he could only half-see moved abruptly, air whispering against steel. Zevran tensed his arms around his Grey Warden and rolled the two of them, the mage waking with a squeak. Beside them, where Kathil had been sleeping, a sword pierced the blankets and went into the hard ground beneath them.

Cullen swore, wrenched his sword free, and raised the blade again.

_No you do _not_, my friend. I wondered if it would come to this._

He coiled himself and rose by driving his shoulder into the taller man's abdomen, knocking him off balance, and disarmed him in one motion. "You _fool_," he hissed as he flung away the Templar's overlong blade and stooped to retrieve one of his own. "What are you _doing_?"

"They must _die_, the mages, all of them—" Cullen's voice was thin and strained, and his shoulders were rounded as he cast around him, evidently looking for a weapon. He fisted one hand and then violently shook it outward, as if he were tossing seed on planting-day. "They _must. _Uldred—abominations, all of them—nobody has come, they are all around me, they are all dead!"

Behind him, Zevran heard a soft intake of breath, a shuffle as Kathil staggered. That was the cleansing Cullen had just used, then. "_Ow_. Dear Maker, this is as bad—no, _worse_—" Kathil's sleep-softened voice broke off. "Cullen, listen to me. It's not real. None of it is real. Remember?"

Zevran took a step forward, raising his sword. Between him and the Templar a four-footed shadow slipped, growling. Lorn's ears were flat against his head. Behind Cullen, Fiann was raising a fuss, her high-pitched puppy bark counterpoint to Lorn's snarl. Beyond the fire, Jowan's shape loomed, and Shaw among the Mabari.

_Well, this is a pretty pickle, is it not?_

Cullen took a step forward, halted. Some amount of sense had returned to his expression when Kathil spoke, but now it drained away, leaving behind it a wreckage that Zevran had seen a few times. He had seen that expression before on men older than Cullen, men locked away in dungeons, away from their brethren...and their supply of lyrium. The Templar looked at Zevran, and then at the Mabari who stood between them with his head lowered, but did not seem to see either of them.

It would be so easy to kill him. Though he was armored, Zevran had helped him put on that armor many a time, and he knew all of the places where a blade could slip in between metal plates. He was unarmed. An easy target, and possibly a necessary one. He could strike, and Cullen would be dead between one breath and the next.

His Grey Warden would never forgive him if he killed her Templar, and that thought alone stayed his hand.

That and he was a little unused to killing people he was fond of, these days.

At that moment, Cullen appeared to realize that he was empty-handed, and turned and ran into the darkness, disappearing between two tall rocks. Fiann followed with a confused yip. Lorn stayed where he was, relaxing only slightly, and watched the place where the Templar had vanished.

"That looked like—" Kathil started to say, and then stopped. Zevran turned to her, and saw that she was shaking her head. "Lyrium withdrawal. More than that, though. Cullen mentioned once that Irving cast a spell that took away most of the memories of what happened to him when the blood mages took over the Tower. He was...not in good shape, right afterwards. It looks like that spell failed. But _why_?"

Shaw cleared his throat. "It is known that persistent spells require a power source," he said in that monotone that all Tranquil spoke in. One of the Mabari looked up at him and whined, cocking its head. "In the case of the rite of Tranquility, it is the lyrium that is used to brand our foreheads. In the case of mages, it is their native connection to the Fade that is used."

"Lyrium," Kathil muttered. "And Templars are addicted. Irving must have bet on him being a good Templar and not stopping taking his medicine. And when he went into withdrawal, the spells on his memory unwove." She raked one hand through her hair, grimacing. "We're only two days from the Tower if we travel hard, but I can't justify leaving the rest of this darkspawn cell undealt with. Zevran, do you think you and Lorn could track down Cullen and bring him to the Tower? The rest of us would probably be only three or four days behind."

Zevran weighed the options. The Tranquil was useless in this case. Jowan, even if Zevran trusted him not to take advantage of a little temporary power over a Templar, was unlikely to be able to convince him to go anywhere—and equally unlikely to be able to talk the Tower into helping him. He knew better than to argue with Kathil about what she thought was her duty, and it was likely that the presence of any mage was going to unbalance Cullen even further.

It was him and the dog.

Again.

"I will go and retrieve our wayward Templar," he said. "Let me guess, you would like him in one piece, yes?"

"So would you," she said pointedly, raising an eyebrow. "Try not to kill him, Zev." She came up to him and pulled him close to her. He closed his eyes. She was shaking, just a little, and her body was taut as a drawn bow. She put her face against his neck and breathed in, and her breath tickled on his skin. After a moment, his Grey Warden stopped trembling, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

He thought about suggesting that they forget the Templar, let him make his own way in the world. He was a Grey Warden; there was help available if he knew enough to ask.

But he was driven to madness by what the Chantry did to its men, cruel in its way as everything it did to mages. He would not ask.

So. Hunting him down it was.

"If you fall to these darkspawn because I am not here to guard your back, I will be _very_ annoyed with you, no?" He kept his tone light.

She knew what he meant, and how he meant it; he could feel it in the way her body relaxed against his, her lips against his neck curving into a smile. "And don't let Cullen get the jump on you, or Lorn. I want you both in working order when I see you next. And tell the Tower that if they hurt Cullen, or let him come to harm, that I _will_ tear down the place around them, stone by stone."

He did not doubt that she would.

There was much else that they did not say, might have said but for the knowledge that they were under the gazes of Jowan and Shaw, one suspicious and the other uninterested to the point of incomprehension. He tightened his arms around her and then let her go. The mage dropped to one knee and opened her arms. Lorn came to her, sitting down and shoving his head against her chest with a sigh. She spoke to the warhound in a voice almost too low to hear.

Zevran heard her say his own name, and Cullen's, and _take care of both of them, Lorn_ and _Cullen is ill, he might not welcome your company_ and _to the Tower_. The warhound whined, and glanced at Zevran. Nothing good ever came of being separated from his human, said the droop of his tail-stub and the urgent nudge of his nose against Kathil's chest. Nothing at all.

"I know," the mage murmured, and her head bent forward. The embers of the fire lent the scene a ruddy, sullen light, deepened shadows beneath her hands on the Mabari's dark fur. "But it is necessary."

The dog sighed, then swiped an enormous, wet tongue over Kathil's face. She squawked, then started laughing and stood, wiping her face with her hand. "I'll help you pack," she said. A few minutes later, they had kissed each other one final time, and Zevran and Lorn were heading into the darkness in the direction that Cullen had gone.

He would have sworn that the Templar had not gone far, that confused by darkness and madness he would move slowly, and stop quickly.

He could not have been more mistaken.

*****

_Kathil:_

It was so strange to be alone.

Well, not _alone_. But though the Mabari were friendly, they were not Lorn. She forced herself to be polite to Shaw, but he was not _company_, as such. And Jowan—Jowan kept his mouth shut. Probably a good idea on his part.

But for four years, even chasing shadows out on the old roads, there had always been Lorn at least, and before that there had been their mismatched company. (And if she had to choose between apostates, she was starting to realize she would have preferred Morrigan's company over Jowan's. The witch had spent a lot of time being irritated with Kathil, but she'd never looked at her like she was _disappointed_.)

And before then there had been the Tower, and Jowan had been her best friend, and there had been the other mages.

She felt somewhat unclothed, without friends.

It was three days since Cullen had fled, and she thought that maybe she was never going to stop shaking. _I should have seen it. Should have known something was going on—why didn't I ask? A simple question and I could have prevented this._

But it was more than that, more than the realization that she had failed her Templar. More than the knowledge that someday, that sword would not be wielded in madness but with grim and deliberate purpose, and on that day she would likely welcome the mercy should she have enough mind left to appreciate it.

More than all that it had been the look in his eyes, the same look that he had given her once through a wall of magic, out of his mind with days of torture. The look that said, _you are my weakness, and my strength._ The demons had tormented him, broken him again and again, and he had lived in part because he was stubborn as stone and in part because the demons had tasted his feelings for her and found them delicious.

Because she was a child of the Tower, she could still feel shame for what she had done to him.

But not regret. No. Never _regret_.

Down by two men and a warhound, they had to change their tactics with the darkspawn. They moved more slowly, stopped often to get their bearings. Being able to sense the darkspawn was all well and good, but that was a blade with two edges; if they were not paying attention to the first faint, sickening feelings of the enemy's presence, they could well alert more than they could handle at once. Jowan was good (more than good, and Kathil knew that necessity and pain had been the best teachers there), and the Mabari were a fearsome pack, but Tranquil did not fight, and Kathil was their only blade. She tended to serve as a deadly distraction, letting the warhounds and Jowan take out the darkspawn while their fire focused on her. But while Kathil was difficult to hit, it was not precisely _impossible_.

"_This_ is why I like to have at least two people who know how to use a sword with me," she grumbled, fumbling one-handed with the buckle of her cuirass. A hurlock's blade had found its way under the light pauldron and into her shoulder, on the scarred side. The tingling feeling that was running down her arm and into the fingertips of her left hand told her that the blade had redamaged something that had been very hard to heal in the first place. _What I would not give for Wynne to be here._

The buckle gave, and she shrugged out of the armor. The shirt was harder to deal with, but she got that off, too. The wound beneath was ragged and bleeding freely, cutting across a number of old scars, and she thought she could see bone covered with a wash of blood. It was going to have to be washed out before she healed it.

They had dropped their bags a ways distant from the afternoon's fight with the darkspawn; a tall maple offered shelter from the late summer sun that had grown abruptly fierce in the last few days. Shaw was seeing to the hurts of the warhounds, fortunately few today. Jowan was...

Where _was_ Jowan?

It didn't matter. She undid the lace that secured one of her waterskins to her pack and used her teeth to pull out the cork. She hissed a breath through her teeth as she poured the water slowly over the wound. That was definitely bone exposed in there. "Sodding little hells," she muttered, closing her eyes and reaching for her power. "Why I never got Wynne to show me some of what she did—I had a sodding _year _and I never got around to it."

Because she had hoped that Wynne would always be around to tend her hurts. Because she had hoped if she'd still _needed_ Wynne, death would leave her alone.

_Don't think about it._

Shaw looked up. "If you need assistance, I may provide it," he said. "I can stitch wounds closed, and apply poultices. Such I have been trained for, to tend to the wounds of Mabari."

She experimentally flexed her hand. The tingling in her fingers grew briefly worse. "In a moment, maybe. There's a lot of deep old scar in here. Let's see what I can do with magic."

She put her fingertips on the edge of the wound, and concentrated. _Ah, merciful Andraste, this is not good._ The spell she had chosen was a simple one, and though the power pooled around the wound, the scar resisted healing. The good flesh in there tried to knit together and pulled apart again, yanked open by scar. She hissed again as the pain in her shoulder redoubled.

There was a hand on her good shoulder, and she flinched away. Jowan was standing there, looking concerned, returned from wherever he'd been gone to. "Do you need help?"

"I'm _fine._ I've taken wounds before, worse than this. A lot worse." She shrugged his hand off her shoulder and immediately regretted the motion.

"Probably not through that scar, though." He looked at her shoulder, and frowned. "Nasty, that. Archdemon?"

"Believe it or not, no." She saw the question in his eyes and shook her head. "Long story. Same critter that tried to tear my face off. I may have to just get Shaw to stitch it and wear a sling for a few weeks. Being temporarily one-handed isn't pleasant, but it's better than losing use of the arm permanently."

Jowan spread his hands. "Kathil. Just—let me try? I know you don't like my magic, but—"

She scowled, reminded uncomfortably of a certain Grey Warden and Templar attempting to refuse her efforts to heal him. _He is a Grey Warden. Let him help._ "Fine. Give it a try."

He sucked in his breath through his teeth and looked at her, apparently attempting to decide if her acquiescence was genuine. "All right. Sit over there. I'll get a few things." Kathil went to put her back against a tree, the bark scratching at her bare skin. She wore only a breastband, but if she'd ever had any modesty, it had been beaten out of her during the war.

Her fellow mage returned, going to one knee beside her. He spent a few minutes muttering to himself, a cadence to his voice that was almost familiar. She wondered who he was reminding her of right now, but the thought slipped away from her as he first tapped her elbow and then her fingertips, bringing the tingling feeling in both into sharp focus. "This is a mess," he said. "You're lucky you didn't lose the arm, you know."

"The Chasind who was taking care of me thought she might kill me if she tried to cut it off," Kathil said. Maker, that had not been a pleasant few months. "So she left it on and waited to see if I would die anyway."

"That I can see." His dark brows were drawn together in concentration. "Hold still. This is going to hurt, and badly."

That was all the warning she got before it felt like liquid fire poured into her shoulder and down into her fingertips. She clenched her hand into the grass beside her and ground her teeth, trying not to scream. Jowan was doing something with a paste from a pot, his fingers tugged at the wound in her shoulder, and her whole arm contracted violently, the muscles knotting and twisting.

The pain finally lessened, settled into a sullen burning, and her muscles began to relax. The world swam back into focus, and she wiped her good hand over her tear-filled eyes. "That's as much as I can do for the moment," Jowan said. He had bandages out, and was wrapping her shoulder securely. "I'll put it in a sling for tonight, you need to rest it. I can repeat that in the morning, if we have time."

There was a cold sweat on her skin, and she just breathed and let Jowan finish with the bandages. "You weren't joking when you said that was going to hurt."

"Messing with scars always does." He tucked one end of the bandage under the rest, then grabbed a large square of cloth and folded it in half, fashioning a sling. "But if you'd left it, you probably would lose more use of that arm than you already have."

"As it is, I'm not looking forward to fighting again tomorrow." Maker, these _darkspawn_. Didn't they have a hole to crawl back into? This wasn't a Blight; why were they being so sodding _persistent_? All she wanted to do was head to the Tower and make sure they were treating Cullen well, make sure that Zevran and Lorn were both alive and whole.

_The duty that cannot be forsworn,_ she heard Duncan's voice in her mind.

_Sod you, Duncan,_ she thought fiercely. _You're dead. _

And yet he had the right of it. She'd spent enough time in dereliction of the duty that had not died with the Archdemon. Right now, beating down this group of darkspawn that was less like a cell and more like a small army was more important than running after the three people she loved best in the world. _Trust Zevran, and Lorn. They have never failed you before. They will not fail you now._

She realized that Jowan was looking at her strangely. And on another day, she would have cut him to shreds with only a word. Right now, though, she was tired and worried and Jowan had just finished being kind to her, and she didn't have enough energy to return that kindness with spite. Instead, she began to pull her boots off, tugging her legs free of metal and leather. Her fellow mage handed her a shirt. One of his own, not one of hers. At her raised eyebrow, he shrugged. "I didn't feel like digging through your pack," he said. "You all right?"

_Sometimes, you just gotta grab your knickers in both hands and hoist yourself up,_ Oghren had told her once. _No use moping and whining if there's nothin' you can do._ "I will be. I'm just worried about Zev and Cullen and Lorn." Kathil pulled on the shirt, being careful of her left arm. The tingling had stopped, and the shoulder and arm seemed to be largely in working order—at least enough to let her get dressed. She saw Jowan open his mouth, then shut it again, and mutely offer the sling that he'd made. She pulled it over her head and settled her arm into it. He had a good eye; it fit nearly perfectly. "All right. What is it you want to say to me, Jowan? I know there's something."

He glanced over at Shaw, who had settled down with the Mabari pack and his back against a tree, to all evidence napping. "I just never thought you'd end up with one man, much less _two_."

"Me, neither." She stretched out her legs and wriggled her toes in her socks, enjoying the feeling of the sun drying the sweat out of them. There was not even the faintest feeling of darkspawn around them. "Funny things happen sometimes. I suppose if they let women be Tower Templars, I might have found myself getting attached to one of them. And Zevran is, well, Zevran. I never did claim not to like men, you know. I just fell in love with Sati first."

Now Jowan was looking...nervous. "Er...you do know that there are sometimes...consequences, when you're sleeping with men? Right?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm aware. But we're mages. Those sorts of consequences don't usually happen to us. I did have a male lover for most of a year, during the war." She'd never told him the lie she'd told the Grey Wardens about how she'd survived the Archdemon's death. She was going to have to, at some stage, but today wasn't the day.

"Really. And not Zevran, from the sound of it." He gave her a speculative look, and she narrowed her eyes at him. This felt strangely familiar, like the ghost of a friendship raising its head between them. "Look, Kathil. I just..." He stopped, and took a breath. "There are certain things that blood tells me, especially when I'm healing someone. And this is too important not to tell you." He glanced over at Shaw again and saw that the Tranquil was still asleep. He lowered his voice. "Did you know that you're pregnant?"

She stared at Jowan, her mouth opening but no words coming out, shock washing over her.

It was as if she were standing on thin air above a yawning chasm, and the only reason that she was not falling was that somehow the world had not yet realized that she stood somewhere impossible.

_Maker help me. What do I do now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am writing this one in between chapters of my other project, so updates will be slow. And I want to play the Awakening expansion pack before starting in on the last installment in this series; fortunately, we have a lot of plot to get through before Kathil and company get to Amaranthine. I have a _lot_ of proverbial guns on the mantelpiece here, and I mean to fire all of them I can manage.
> 
> My thanks to everyone for being patient!


	2. Waking Up To Shake the Land

_Zevran:_

"Are you _very_ sure they went this way?" he asked, surveying the bramble thicket before them, a riot of tangled, thorny vines. The smell of sun-warmed berries was heavy on the still afternoon air.

Lorn barked and trotted forward, dipping his head to the ground every few paces. Zevran sighed and followed. Three days now, it had been, and still they had not found Cullen and Fiann. Lorn was on their trail, but he was a warhound and not a tracker, and they had lost almost a full day after Lorn had lost the trail at the edge of a lake. Zevran had thought that even if Cullen were far enough lost in madness that he was neither sleeping nor eating, surely the Mabari pup with him would slow him down. Evidently, he had underestimated the enormous amount of heart that the Mabari had, even when small. They had discovered no sign that Fiann had fallen behind, so they must still be together.

They had crossed miles of open farmland and brushy forest. It had been a little familiar to travel with the dog, since it was he and Lorn who had gone in to break their two Grey Wardens out of Fort Drakon, these several years ago. They had run into a few darkspawn and a couple of budding businessmen who thought, foolishly, that Zevran looked like an easy target. Lorn had been off hunting for the two of them at that point, and by the time he returned the pair of bandits had been bound and tied to a tree. Zevran had given them a lesson in choosing their targets they would not soon forget. If they had managed to free themselves, they were probably running for their lives still.

It had been a _most_ inspired lecture he had given, after all.

Now Zevran hurried his footsteps, because Lorn had discovered what appeared to be a narrow path that twisted through the thicket. Someone used this path relatively often, if the brambles had not closed it. Probably bears. Now _that_ was a cheerful thought, was it not? Meeting a bear in the middle of this thicket, where thorns reached out to snag clothing and hair, leaving long scratches along his arms.

He comforted himself with the notion that if the bears were ahead, Lorn would warn him, and if they were behind, he would hear them. Bears were not known for their stealth. A vine tried to slap him across the face, and he ducked and twisted beneath it.

He heard the crashing and crunching sound of Lorn making his way through the thicket stop. Then came a puzzled _whuff?_ and an answering sound that nearly stopped Zevran's heart, an exhausted _yip!_ from somewhere ahead. He sped up, now heedless of the vines that punished his intemperate motion by leaving long scratches on any bare skin they could find. By the time he made it out of the thicket, he was dripping blood from any number of deep scratches. He ignored them, because on the other side of the thicket--

Lorn was snuffling Fiann, the pup looking exhausted but happy to see the larger Mabari, her little stubby tail flailing. Beyond the Mabari was Cullen, kneeling with his head bowed in the fierce afternoon sun. He did not seem to notice their arrival.

Cullen's reddish curls were disheveled, matted with sweat close to his scalp, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His shoulders were trembling as he prayed. He was still wearing his armor, but it was spotted and stained with substances Zevran did not want to think too closely about. He sported deep scratches on his face, evidently a result of tangling with the thicket.

Well, they had found their wandering Templar. Now what were they going to do with him?

Fiann came to him, dropped trembling at his feet. Zevran dropped to one knee to scratch her ears. Her knight was _broken_. Could the shattered-rock-elf fix him?

He shook his head. "I do not know, lady hound. But I must try to get him somewhere where there is help." He shrugged out of his pack and rummaged through it. There was a supply of dried meat--ah, there. He would bet that Cullen had not fed either himself or the dog. He had not stopped anywhere long enough to hunt, and he had little enough to hunt with. The pup fell on the meat with a voracious appetite, making the whole handful disappear in three heartbeats. "You will keep an eye on her, Lorn, yes? While I attempt to reason with the knight."

Lorn gave Cullen a dubious look. "No, I am not certain it will work. But our Grey Warden has asked me to interfere, and interfere I will."

The warhound came to him and nudged Fiann away. Was there anything more to eat? the pup wanted to know. They had been walking forever and ever and ever, and she was so tired and so _hungry_.

Zevran didn't see Lorn's reply. Instead he rose, turning his attention to Cullen. He had seen men taken by the lyrium madness before. He did not know exactly how far they were from the Tower, but if he had to knock Cullen out and drag him cross-country, this was going to be an entirely unpleasant trip. The Templar was a tall man, and well-muscled, and _heavy_. Well, he would try reason first, and only then violence.

He approached Cullen, treading quietly, coming at him from the side. He was good at appearing harmless, but it seemed that all his caution was for nothing, as Cullen completely ignored his approach. He said the Templar's name, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Half a heartbeat later, Zevran was on the ground, rolling to his feet. Damnation, the man was fast when he chose to be! Cullen had not stopped praying, just seized Zevran's arm and bodily thrown him away from himself. The assassin approached again, this time simply standing there, not touching the Templar.

There was no flicker of acknowledgement, much less recognition. And the prayer that Cullen spoke was a broken, limping thing, phrases repeating all out of order: "Guide--guide me, guide me, of the wicked, wicked, wick--in the shadow, in the--the wind, the wind from its wings--guide me--"

"Cullen." No response. "Cullen, you _must_ listen to me. We must go, and I do not believe you will forgive me easily if I knock you over the head and drag you behind me, no?"

Nothing.

Violence it was.

But before he could draw a knife to give the Templar a smart rap to the back of the head with the pommel, Lorn was there in front of them. He looked at Cullen and whined, then shook himself. He had done this before, said the sharp set of his head. He would do it again.

Before Zevran could ask _when_ exactly the Mabari had needed to try to shake a human out of madness, the warhound crouched and then gave a howl that seemed to shake the very earth itself, starting low and rising urgently. He repeated the howl once, twice, then a third time.

Cullen stirred, and stopped praying.

Lorn stopped howling, opening his mouth in a grin, and swiped his tongue across the Templar's face. You're _back_! said a wagging tail.

A little sense was creeping into Cullen's expression, and he stared at the warhound with an expression somewhere between incredulity and anger. "Lorn?" he said, and his voice was painfully rough. "What are--where--"

_Ah, the healing powers of Mabari drool._ "We have come to fetch you, yes?" Zevran said. "As for where we are, I am not _entirely_ sure, but I believe there may be bears in the neighborhood. We should repair to somewhere more comfortable, no?"

"I thought you were a demon. It's so hard to tell." There were still shadows haunting the Templar's eyes. He swiped a hand across his face, fending off another lick from Lorn with the other. "I--did I kill anyone? I remember..."

Zevran shook his head and stepped forward, offering Cullen a hand. "No, though your pup is not going to thank you for traveling nonstop for days. Come. We will rest, and then we will go to the Tower."

Cullen at first regarded Zevran's hand as he might a poisonous snake, then reached out, slowly. Zevran grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Zevran, I am not..."

_Well? Yourself? Anything even slightly like useful to anyone in this state? _"I know, my good Templar, which is why our mage sent Lorn and I after you."

Cullen looked down, focusing on the dog. "I don't think that demons are smart enough to try to appear as dogs. You said--the Tower? Wait, how long as it been?"

"Three days." He started walking, pulling Cullen along with him. "You were in motion the whole time. I believe I have this thicket to thank for slowing you down enough for the dog and I to catch up with you." Behind them, he head Fiann give a tired sigh, then the sound of the two Mabari getting to their feet and following them. There was a cool wind coming from the west that carried with it the smell of water. Lake Calenhad, he hoped; Cullen had been traveling in a rather westward fashion, and if they were even slightly lucky, they would encounter the lake's edge and then be able to follow it south to the Tower.

Fortunately, Zevran's luck appeared to be back from wherever it had been traveling, and brought with it the lake that he had hoped to find, only an hour's walk away. Cullen lapsed into muttering and prayer a few times, but only once did it take Lorn to bring him back once again. They stopped beneath some trees near the lake's edge to let both Cullen and Fiann eat and drink. The pup, once fed and watered, lay down in a shady spot and was abruptly asleep. Lorn lay down next to her, ears alert and protective. "Drink this," Zevran said, handing Cullen a small flask. "It's a restorative, yes?"

It was not _precisely _a lie. After all, sleep had restorative properties. Especially when they could _all_ sleep and not have to worry about Cullen running away again. And when Cullen went down like a stunned sheep, he removed the Templar's armor and lay down with him, throwing an arm over him. The warm late summer air was soporific, almost reminiscent of afternoons in Antiva City--only without the throat-choking smells of midden and tannery.

Almost something like pleasant.

Zevran closed his eyes. The Tower would wait.

When he woke some time later, it was because Cullen had shifted in his sleep and was holding on to him, tightly as a drowning man might clutch a rope.

*****

_Jowan:_

Kathil's hand was hard on his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh. She had pulled him away from their makeshift camp, evidently out of worry that the Tranquil mage they were traveling with was going to overhear their conversation. The arm that was still in a sling across her body did not seem to hamper her any as she nearly dragged him through the woods.

She released him once they were several hundred feet away, near a place where a stream made a deep pool beneath tall, mossy stones. "How do you know?" she asked him, her voice tightly controlled. "Are you _sure_?"

Jowan still had Leliana's voice ringing in his ears. _I wanted to make very clear the consequences of hurting her. Do any more damage than has already been done, and there is nowhere you can hide from me. _ "I told you. Blood...it speaks, just like fire and ice and earth do. I am sure, yes."

There had been that one woman--where? Somewhere just north of the Korcari Wilds in a little village that barely qualified for the term. Her husband had been killed by the darkspawn not a month before. They'd shared a bottle of wine and talked about anything but their various losses. When he'd held her, he could almost feel the hard, dry grief inside of her, desiccated as an old bone. And he _could_ feel her blood, how it carried a fine tincture of humors that whispered that her husband had left one final gift for her. Marsle. That had been her name. Marsle.

If she had survived, her son or daughter would be nearly three years old.

Kathil leaned against on a boulder, thin fingers combing through the moss reflexively. "Maker's _Balls_. Well. I knew it was possible. Wynne--do you remember Wynne?" Jowan nodded, watching her carefully. "She had a child. The spells that they use to keep us from having children fail sometimes, obviously. So do the spells they use to take our early memories away. I _could_ wish it had chosen a more opportune moment to fail."

"Why?" he asked, still blinking at the revelation that Wynne, sweet Wynne whose veneer of piety had not quite covered the fact that she was very _sharp_ beneath it all, _Wynne_ of all people had had a child. "I mean--you're acting like it's the end of the world."

She shot him a dark glare. "_Aside_ from the fact that I have no idea how Zevran and Cullen are going to react, do you know what happens to mages when the Chantry finds out they're with child? They _imprison_ them, Jowan. They take them away from the Tower and stand watch over them for months, and when the child is born they take it away to be raised by the Chantry. I am not going to let them do that to me, or any child of mine." She took a sharp breath. "My saving grace is that it's early yet, or so I assume. Mention this to _anyone_, Jowan, and I will kill you."

He ignored the threat. How had his life come to this, that people threatening to kill him was routine? "Yes, it's early, but I can tell more if you let me examine you. I just need to put a hand over your womb," he hastened to add, answering her horrified look. "From how the blood flows, I can tell you much."

Her dark eyes were narrowed, and she scuffed one bare foot in the dirt. It took her a moment to speak again. "Fine. Be quick about it."

Jowan approached her cautiously, as he might a Mabari whose loyalties he did not yet know. The fingernails of her good hand dug into the moss that covered the stone she had her back to. Looking at her, he could see traces--just traces--of the girl she had once been, whose hair had been cut short many times after she'd set it on fire, who he'd caught looking out the windows at the lake again and again. _I wish I could go swimming,_ she'd said. _Just once. All the water in the Tower is _tame. _I want to feel what water is really like._

That girl was still there, a little bit of her. And that girl was scared.

The rest of her was one of the most dangerous people in Thedas, however one reckoned danger, and he thought that the Chantry would have a very nasty surprise on its hands if it decided to try to imprison her. She tensed at his approach, and he felt static in the air. She seemed to have herself well under control, almost to being able to hide her flinch when he laid his hand on her abdomen.

The awareness of her blood nearly swamped his will, but he caught himself, concentrated. He breathed out, then in again. The darkspawn taint in her blood was strong, much stronger than his own. It had had years to take hold of her, after all. He followed how it flowed, where it concentrated.

Jowan pulled his hand away and stepped back. "About a month along, more or less," he said. "But...Kathil, there is a problem." He stopped, reluctant to finish the statement. He had a very good idea that she was not going to welcome the rest of the news he had for her.

"Tell me." He eyes on his face were consuming, as if by will alone she could strip his soul bare and find the answers she sought. She shifted her arm in the sling.

He took a long breath. "Your body is holding the taint in your blood back, for the moment. But it won't be able to for much longer. Once the taint breaches the barrier...I cannot imagine that it will leave the child unchanged. Without intervention, it is likely you're going to lose the child, Kathil. And even if you don't, it...will not be normal. I am sorry."

Her face twisted, and lightning danced over her fingertips, leaving behind the smell of split air and burned moss and scorched cloth where the edge of the sling blackened. She tilted her face up to the sky, biting her lip.

_I'm sorry, Leliana. I tried. _

He wondered if he should start running now, or wait until after the probably inevitable firestorm began. At least all of the fields around here had already been fired. He could wish that Cullen hadn't gone crazy and run off, or at least that Zevran and Lorn hadn't followed him. Surely there should be _someone_ here more qualified to calm down one extremely upset Grey Warden than him and Shaw. Keeping an eye on Kathil, who for the moment was not moving, he began to edge away.

"_Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin_," Kathil said, her face still turned up to the sky. From her tone, she was quoting someone. "_Now she does feast, as she's become the beast_. Hespith warned me."

"Hespith?" he asked, wary.

"We found her in the Deep Roads, just before we ran into something which has become a very _personal_ nightmare for me." She took a shuddering breath, and then told him. Where darkspawn came from. How they were made.

Why there weren't more female Grey Wardens.

When she was finished speaking, the lightning on her hands had died, and her head was bowed. The fingers of her left hand curled around the edge of her sling. She seemed...small. Tired. Not heroic in the slightest.

_Human._

He didn't say anything. What was there to say? _I'm sorry_ just didn't seem to cover it. "I'd thought that being a mage would protect me," she said quietly, raising her head. "I should have known better than to trust anything that the Circle does. Look. Did you mention intervention, before? As in, there might be one?"

He _did_ have to open his big mouth, didn't he? "Maybe," he admitted. "But it's blood magic."

"It's _always_ blood magic, isn't it?" She blew out an annoyed breath at his confused look. "Never mind."

Come to think of it, Jowan wasn't entirely certain that she wasn't actually insane. "Er. I think I can strengthen the barrier your body puts up naturally, and maintain it. It's only theoretical, is the problem. And it's not like I have any books to consult. I've been learning on my own--" He broke off, blinking at the look on her face. For a moment, looking at her, he was transported back five years. "Oh, _no_."

"You sodding _owe me_, Jowan. And we're going to the Tower anyway. You've _been_ in the restricted archives." She straightened her shoulders, giving him a gimlet look. "I have very little to lose by making the attempt."

"Except for possibly making things even worse," he said. "If this goes wrong, I could accidentally kill you, Kathil."

She twitched the scarred corner of her mouth. "So make sure it doesn't go wrong."

He could almost _hear_ the person she had become come roaring back, fitting around her like armor. Kathil the Grey Warden, the Hero of Ferelden, stood in front of him once more. _We are not friends_, he heard her voice repeat.

No. They were not.

But _damned_ if he weren't going to do what she asked anyway.

"You're going to have to provide cover for me," he said. "If Irving is as smart as I sometimes suspect he is, he's probably moved the books on blood magic, and improved the security on them. Since there was, oh, _none_ on the basic books when I found them, and I managed to get access to the more advanced books with a well-placed ice spell and a couple of cookies. It may take some time."

Kathil gave him a smile that was as thin and cold as the ice the crept over Lake Calenhad in the winter. "I can get you time. As long as you remember that we have a deadline. How long, do you think?"

"A month," he said. "To be safe, I need to have the spells up and running on you in half that time. You do realize that this means that we're going to have to stick together for the next eight months or so, right?"

"Worry about it _after_ we get what we need from the Tower, and after I make sure that Cullen and Zevran and Lorn are all right, and after I figure out how to fix what's broken with the Circle. _Again_." A line was appearing between her brows. "You know, something just occurred to me. Let's just say I'm the Chantry. I have an interest in making sure that magic is ruthlessly controlled, especially magic that might be turned against me some day. Mages can use _this_ magic or _that_ magic but not this specifically forbidden magic. So...I make a big deal about blood magic being forbidden. And then I leave basic reference texts in the library, and make it easy for mages who discover an interest in it to defeat the security on the advanced texts. And _then_, when the newly made blood mages are apprentices or just barely passed their Harrowing, you cull them before they get powerful enough to be trouble. What if they're doing it on purpose, Jowan? A Harrowing _before_ the Harrowing. Tempt us all, and kill us or make us Tranquil if we fall."

"I've...had that thought, myself." He shook his head. "The Tranquil might be creepy, but they're useful and easier to control than full mages. And the fewer mages who make it to adulthood, the fewer that the Templars need to guard."

"I have to say they're not doing a very good job," she said sourly. "It seems like there's almost as many apostates as Circle mages these days." She took a deep breath. "I think I need to go kill something. Preferably something that deserves killing."

"Shoulder," he hastened to point out, earning a surprised look from her. "I was serious when I said you needed to rest it." He had not enjoyed working on her shoulder; the healing had _hurt_. Not as much as it had hurt her, but in any case he did not want to have to repeat it.

She said something incomprehensible; it sounded like a curse in some language. Probably dwarven. "Back to camp, then." She shoved herself away from the boulder and walked past him, bare feet nearly soundless on the forest duff.

Jowan followed. No, they weren't friends. Partners in crime, though. That, they could still be.

_"Come on, Kathil," he said. "Quick, or we're going to get caught." He'd caught her hand in his, and he was pulling her down one of the back hallways near the kitchens. _

_"Where are we going? You still haven't told me." She was following anyway, abuzz with curiosity._

_"Sssh, and come _on_." Around a corner, through a mostly-empty storeroom--shove a crate aside and reveal a crack in the wall of the Tower large enough for two skinny adolescents to squeeze through--and then they were _outside_. There was a cold wind blasting across the lake that stung and reddened their cheeks, bringing with it the smell of ice and snow. Lake Calenhad was lapping the shore of the island where the Tower stood with little waves. "It's too cold for swimming, I think, but at least we can wade."_

_She was already pulling off her shoes. "Oh! Cold, _cold--" _But she was grinning, and as she waded fearlessly into the lake he followed her. "Look at it, Jowan. It's not tame at all."_

_Not tame in the slightest. He would remember that smile on her face for the rest of his life. She was his crazy little sister, by choice if not by blood, and he would follow her to the ends of the earth to make her happy. And as the wind buffeted both of them and took Kathil's laughter skirling up the walls of the Tower, he promised himself that he would always protect her--as much as she'd let him, anyway._

_The talking-to they had gotten for that adventure was utterly worth it for those precious few moments of freedom, the wind and the lake and the smell of snow, to be able to pretend for a few minutes that life outside the Tower was possible._

_Sati disappeared not a month later. He met Lily the next spring._

_After that, everything was different._

*****

_Cullen:_

The broken bridge that led to the Tower seemed to lurch a bit to the side as Cullen stumbled over a shadow, something half-seen.

Zevran braced himself against Cullen, steadying him. "I do not believe I have _ever_ been so grateful to see the Tower," the elf muttered. "Just down the hill, yes? Only a little farther."

Cullen didn't know how long it had been since Zevran and Lorn had found him. Two days? Two months? He stumbled through waking nightmares, and when he slept the shadows tore him apart over and over again. Lorn's voice could drive the nightmares away for a moment, giving him strands of light to cling to--the demons were never dogs. Lorn was not a demon, Fiann was not a demon. Maybe Zevran was, though. Would a demon ever allow itself to become so disheveled, though? When he was a little lucid, he remembered that Mabari were sensitive to the emanations of demons, so if they were still with him, then the elf was probably not a Fade creature.

He had to fight to hold onto that knowledge, and it kept slipping away from him.

They went down the hill, Cullen struggling to stay upright. The Tower was glowing in the clear morning light, enough to hurt his eyes. The lake was in a silvery sort of mood, dark currents quiet under the brilliant surface. Then they were by the docks, and Zevran let go of him. Cullen's head was throbbing. The light off the lake was stabbing through him, and he pressed his fingers to the side of his head, trying to hold his skull together. It hurt, and the inside of it _itched_, and his wrists hurt and _everything_ hurt.

"Well, there's someone I never thought I'd see again, and have you traded your Grey Warden for this one, Zevran? You both look like hell," said a gruff voice.

"Tell me something I do not know." That was Zevran. "I must get the Grey Warden here to the Tower, yes? Preferably without drowning him first. Though he might be a bit less trouble, drowned."

"Well, boat's got room. And--well, look at you, little one! Now aren't you just a cute thing. Come on, then, into the boat with the lot of you." There was a pair of strong hands on Cullen's shoulders, steering him down the dock. Another pair--large, callused--helped him into a place where the ground was no longer the ground and _why_ was the world moving like that?

"Sssh, Cullen." That was Zevran's voice, his breath against Cullen's ear. "One last trial, yes? If you fight, you will upset the boat, and I can assure you that Mabari smell even worse wet than they do dry."

Obedient, Cullen ceased trying to fight, instead wrapping his hands around the edge of the--

Boat.

It was a boat, and this was Lake Calenhad and this was the _Tower--_

He was _home_.

Oh.

The bench he sat on was narrow; they were in the rowboat, then, not the larger platform boat used to carry supplies across the lake. Fiann was at his feet, her eyes wide. Lorn lay in the bow, one paw over his nose, visibly unhappy. The ferryman--Kester, that was his name, how had he forgotten? The man was an institution--was ahead of them, rowing.

Zevran sat behind him, and Cullen twisted to look at him. The assassin did in fact look like hell, blond hair twisted and tangled, dark smudges along his jaw and around his neck. But the cocky grin he gave Cullen was undimmed. "At least we tarried long enough that Kathil should be only a day or two behind us," he said. "I hope, at least. I fear that I am not going to be so very convincing, washing up at the Tower like this."

Cullen stared at the elf. Belatedly, memory began to return, a little; going to the Tower, to see if there was anything that might be done for him, to see if the madness could be packed away again as if it was clothing that had been spilled out of a wardrobe. And those smudges on Zevran's face and neck--not dirt. At least, not mostly. Bruises.

"Did I give you those?" he asked, blinking.

"What? Ah. You did. It could be worse, yes? Neither of us are so very pretty at the moment." There was a smile on Zevran's lips, but it failed to reach his eyes.

_Andraste's mercy. What did I do?_

Now that he thought about it, there were certain parts of him that hurt more than others. His wrists were ringed with bruises and torn skin. The ribs on his right side were protesting when he breathed too deeply, and the left side of his face was jangling with soreness. That wasn't helping the headache any. He touched his left temple, and winced. "Black eye," Zevran said. "Don't touch it."

The boat was pulling alongside the wooden dock on the Tower's island, and the world rocked as Kester locked the oars and jumped up onto the dock. The old causeway loomed over their heads, casting cool shadows beneath. Cullen averted his eyes from those shadows, because he could see them moving. Lorn got to his feet and leaped to the dock, and Fiann scrambled after.

Cullen followed, accepting Kester's hand to help him up to the docks. The air was going bright and then shadowed around the edges. Cullen looked at his feet, staring at the rough, splintered wood of the dock. _Hold on to this. This is real. _ Fiann was leaning against his legs.

Her ears drooped. Don't go, said the warm brown eyes looking up at him. Don't go again. Stay here.

There were a set of fearsome jaws around his wrist, tugging him forward, to the end of the dock and up the stone stairs. His wrist was wet. Voices. There were voices that were familiar, that he had not heard in a long time. There was stone beneath his feet and all around him--the Tower. The entrance hall. He struggled to hold onto that knowledge. _I know where I am._

"...and he is one of yours, Knight-Commander," Zevran was saying. "He is a Grey Warden, yes, but that does not change the fact that his service here is what has done this to him." The elf sounded tired, and the usual good humor was missing from his voice, rendering his accent flat and dangerous. "I brought him here by the _Grey Warden_ Kathil's personal request, and she will be here within a few days. She will be _very_ angry if she learns you have turned us away."

"The Grey Warden Cullen is no longer our concern." That was Greagoir's voice. Even with the world flickering in and out of shadow around him, his voice always made Cullen want to stand up very straight. Maybe salute. "We are not in the business of caring for former Templars whose _own choices_ have incapacitated them."

There was a moment of silence. Cullen squinted at the Knight Commander. There was something he was supposed to remember about him. Something important. Whatever it was, it slipped away like light through his fingers. Zevran shifted next to him, and something about that movement reminded Cullen that the elf was an assassin, and people who tried to get in his way often got killed. He tried to open his mouth, to say _don't, the Tower needs him_, but his mouth was so dry and his tongue wouldn't move.

But instead of moving to strike, the elf stayed still. "Even if you do not feel you owe it to Warden Cullen, Knight-Commander, one would think that the Tower and the Chantry would _remember_ the very great debt that they both owe the Grey Wardens. And you in particular, if I recall correctly. A personal debt, yes, to the Grey Warden Kathil, for going into the Tower when none of you Templars dared. To rescue a _particular_ mage." His voice was full of hidden blades. "A very particular mage indeed."

The Knight-Commander's eyes narrowed. "I do not," Greagoir answered, "think I care very much for what you are implying."

Now there was an insouciant, dangerous note in Zevran's voice. "Do you not? Then why not admit us, before you and I lose patience with one another? Our Grey Warden will be here soon enough, and she brings with her three pairs of Mabari and a Tranquil mage experienced in their handling. Would it not be better for her not to be angry with you when she arrives?"

There was someone else with Kathil. Another mage. Why wasn't Zevran mentioning the other mage? He struggled to remember. An arch of black eyebrows; nothing more.

A new voice rang out in the hall. "Greagoir, let them in already. Cullen is obviously in a bad way, and I want to see if I can figure out how that spell that was on him came undone. If you have to justify it to yourself, let it be me investigating the failure of an experiment."

Greagoir turned toward the origin of the unseen voice. "First Enchanter--"

"I know your objections, and I'm overruling them. The Grey Warden needs care that only we can provide, and if nothing else we can test that protocol for lyrium withdrawal that Ser Harrith sent along a couple of years ago." Irving. That was Irving. Strange. He didn't think Irving liked him at all, and definitely not enough to defend him to Greagoir. "Stop being such an empty suit of armor. The boy was under your command for years. We owe him, and the Grey Wardens, this much."

Time blurred a little, and then there was a hand on his arm and he was walking through stone hallways that curved in a familiar way. "Just a little farther now. _Maker_, when I get my hands on that girl--she should know better. Hero of Ferelden or not, there is _no_ excuse."

Not her fault, he wanted to protest.

Except that it perhaps was, and the demons wore her face.

That was his last thought before the shadows claimed him again, tearing him into pieces.

*****

_Kathil:_

The sun was sinking, casting a bloody light through the low clouds on the horizon. "We're not going to get to the docks before sunset," she said, shading her eyes. "A night at the Spoiled Princess before we go to the Tower would probably do us some good, I think." There was a bitter taste on her lips. Another night before she found out if Zevran and Lorn and Cullen were all right.

It had been too long already. Four days of what seemed like constant battle with mere pauses to catch their breaths between fights had passed since Jowan's revelation of her pregnancy. It reminded her of what it had been like during the war, constantly pushing themselves, the feeling of a deadline pressing on them without mercy. She missed all three of those who were gone fiercely. She kept finding herself trying to turn to them with a question or an observation, woke herself up at night when she would turn in her blankets and find no warm body next to her, no Mabari sleeping at her feet or behind her knees.

At least throwing herself into battle meant that she had little time to think about the fact that she had somehow managed what she had thought was impossible--what _Wynne_ had told her was impossible. _Well. Not without help._ She had an idea that Zevran, at least, would not mind the idea of being a father; she'd talked a little bit about it with him on a couple of occasions, usually when she was feeling a bit bitter about being barren. _I have spent most of my life assuming I will never have children_, he'd said, _but who are either of us to say what will or will not happen in the future? _

Cullen, though.

_Worry about him regaining his wits first._

Part of her was elated. Another was terrified. If the Chantry found out, her status as a Grey Warden would be little use against its insistence that any child that was born to a Circle mage belonged in a cage made of rules, Templars, and watchful sisters. She already antagonized the Chantry enough as it was just by being a Grey Warden mage. Blatantly and publicly defying it would likely needle the whole organization into action. Best to let sleeping giants lie, if she could.

There were more immediate problems that needed dealing with. "Shaw, there should be a stream about a quarter mile that way, down that path," she said, pointing to a narrow dirt track that led past a cairn of stacked stones. "The Mabari could probably use a drink, since I'm sure some of them will be wanting to mark that old boat that Lorn seems to love so much at the docks."

Shaw just looked at her, then nodded. In someone who had not gone through the Rite of Tranquility, she would have likely seen a bit of suspicion in his eyes. He likely knew he wanted to get him out of earshot so she could talk to Jowan without him overhearing, but she didn't think it bothered him. Nothing bothered Shaw. He wasn't capable of being bothered.

It was so difficult not to think of the Tranquil as simple, though their intelligence was undiminished by the ritual and they were certainly capable of making intellectual judgments. But enjoying their presence was like enjoying the presence of a table, or a lamppost. They received nothing, gave nothing back.

It was more than a living death. It was a reduction of what had once been a whole person to nothing but a tool.

Kathil could not help but think of the Rite as a crime at least as horrible as anything any blood mage had ever done.

She turned to Jowan as the Mabari bounded away, followed by Shaw. "I think we should probably not take any chances," she said, pitching her voice low. "There's every possibility that there will be Templars at the docks. The new ones won't recognize you, but..."

He grimaced. "I was about to suggest it. It's probably best if nobody but you knows I'm there. The Tower is empty enough at this point that I didn't have much trouble being beneath notice before. I just hope Shaw doesn't decide to mention who you were traveling with."

"Who do you think is going to ask?" She shrugged. "And if he does mention it, I can just tell them that I sent you to Amaranthine because I didn't think that bringing you to the Tower was a good idea. Which, really, it is _not_, but we do what we must." She glanced in the direction that the Mabari had gone. "Mouse, Jowan. Before either I die of old age or Shaw returns."

He nodded and muttered a word that was almost familiar from seeing Morrigan shapeshift so many times. Then his outline wavered and he was abruptly gone, pack and all. In the middle of the road there was a mouse. A completely unremarkable mouse, except for the reddish cast to its fur. She stooped and put her hand down, and Jowan clambered into her palm. "Don't ever let Leliana see you in this form," she told him, bringing him up to eye level. "She'll think you're cute. And when she thinks something is cute, she puts a bow on it and calls it Schmooples."

If it was possible for a mouse to have a horrified expression on its face, Jowan had one now. His whiskers quivered, and he scrubbed at the side of his muzzle with both delicate paws. Kathil chuckled and opened a pocket on the side of her pack, letting Jowan climb inside.

A few minutes later, Jeseth hurtled out of the woods, mouth open in a happy pant, and threw himself against Kathil's legs in a show of canine enthusiasm. A moment later, half of her face was covered in Mabari drool and she was fending off more assaults by that giant, very _wet_ tongue. The rest of the warhounds arrived a moment later, and in the manner of dogs everywhere began informing her that they had not seen her for whole _minutes_ and they were _very_ happy to be reunited with her. One of them snuffled the pocket where Jowan was hiding, ears pricked. "Leave it be," Kathil told the Mabari, who looked disappointed but left off her sniffing.

_Right. Must not let the Mabari eat the blood mage._ Not that it wasn't _tempting_...

She shouldered her pack as Shaw came into view. "The docks are just a few miles on. We can get to the Princess tonight, and convince Kester to take us across in the morning. Let's go."

Shaw looked around. "Jowan will not be joining us?"

"Bringing a convicted maleficar back to the Tower isn't a good idea, even if he is a Grey Warden," she said. She started walking, and Jeseth and one of the female Mabari fell in on either side of her. The shadows under the trees were going purple as the sun slipped below the horizon. They would be racing the night to get to the Spoiled Princess before true night fell, but Kathil was looking forward to a night spent in a real bed. The darkspawn cell had finally broken and run; they had met some of the local bann's soldiers on the road, who had promised to pursue and find out where they were coming from.

Shaw asked no more questions, and the miles went by quickly. They paused at the top of the hill, near the spot where they had come across the scavenger who had set them on the trail of Sten's sword. The moon was rising, and the Tower rose from the lake, windows showing in dark relief against the white stone. The Mabari loped down the hill, sniffing around the dock and the lake's edge, going up to greet the Templar who was posted on a little knoll next to the shore. Kathil and Shaw followed them down. It had been half a year since she had been here. She'd thought, in the spring, that she'd go to Waking Sea and come back in a couple of months, take up her life in the Circle once more.

How things changed.

Some things stayed the same, though. The Spoiled Princess never changed. The barmaids came and went, but the innkeeper Evrard was eternal, as were the regular patrons. As they walked in, Evrard nodded to her. "Warden. Thought you might show soon. Need a room for the night, or do you want me to send someone to rouse Kester?"

She walked up to the bar, ignoring the patrons, who ignored her right back. "Don't bother Kester. Two rooms. The big one for the Tranquil and the Mabari, regular one for me. And do you have anything hot left in the kitchen?"

"You're in luck. There's a couple of meat pies left, and some potatoes. Small mead to drink, right?"

Kathil smiled. "You remembered."

Evrard chuckled, pushing himself away from the bar. "Felsi never would let me forget. I'll get those pies. You want anything for the Mabari?"

The warhounds were filing in after them, checking out the inn and its patrons. "Depends. Do you have a side of beef or some mutton you can spare?"

"Got most of a sheep you can have," Evrard said. "Cost you, though."

"I'll settle up tomorrow. Probably a good idea to feed the mutts before they decide that one of the regulars look good." Jeseth shoved his head under her hand, drooling on her boots. "So have you seen--"

"The elf?" Evrard grinned. "Hard to miss him. Came through here with a Mabari and a former Templar who looked in a bad way. A couple of days ago. Figured that you wouldn't be far behind." He waved her off. "Go sit down. I'll bring your food in a bit."

She and Shaw collected the Mabari. "Littine, stop bothering the patrons," Shaw said in his perfectly even voice. The warhound had set her head on the edge of a table in order to make adoring eyes at a man who was eating a bowl of stew and attempting to ignore the dog.

Littine heaved a great sigh and came over to settle down next to Shaw. It wasn't fair. She was _hungry_.

"Mutton soon," Kathil said. She learned over to pat the warhound's flank. _The elf, a Mabari, and a former Templar. They're here. _She felt a smile spreading over her face, and stifled the urge to hug someone.

She hadn't known just how much worry she'd been carrying, heavy as the pack she hauled on her back. They were alive, they were at the Tower, and hopefully Cullen was being helped. She still had no idea what was wrong with the Tower, and she still had everything _else_ to worry about, but tomorrow she would see the people in this world who she valued above all others.

One more day together. It was all she could ever ask for.

* * *

_But then again, maybe this life is like a sleeping mountain  
waking up to shake the land._

_\--Carrie's Song, Vienna Teng_

__


	3. Returning to Harbor

_Kathil:_

The polished steel mirror in her room at the Spoiled Princess gave Kathil back her wavering reflection almost sullenly. She peered into it, adjusting the looping, jeweled chains that her Warden's Oath was set in. "That's pretty," Jowan said behind her. "Not Grey Warden standard issue, I'm guessing."

She half-turned towards him. The blood mage sat on the foot of her bed, temporarily out of mouse form. He'd spent the night on the floor, on his own blankets; she hadn't dared get him his own room, and sleeping in shapeshifted form was evidently inadvisable, since the spell had a habit of wearing off abruptly when the caster fell asleep. Luckily for his continued existence, he did not snore. "It was a gift from Zevran," she said, then turned back to the mirror. She wore formal robes, and had braided her hair back severely. The necklace was her only ornamentation. _Clothing is like language, _Leliana had told her. The bard had also taught Kathil about the great power of making the proper entrance. "Well, I'm just about ready. Not really how I wanted to show up at the Tower, but it'll do."

Jowan snorted. "What were you going to do, arrive on their doorstep with the three of us and Lorn behind you, and demand that they tell you what was wrong?"

"More or less." She'd _intended_ to show up with all of the implied power she could summon, and stare the two men who led the Tower down. With Cullen in need of their help, she was going to have to take a more subtle approach.

_At least until Cullen is well._

That he might _not_ recover was not a possibility she was willing to admit.

Outside the inn, she heard Mabari barking. "We should go."

She turned and discovered that Jowan had already changed shape, and was climbing into the same pocket in her pack he'd ridden in yesterday. She shouldered her pack and went downstairs. After collecting Shaw and the Mabari (the latter had been having a "who can pee higher on this old overturned boat" contest), they all loaded onto the platform boat. Someone had evidently warned Kester that they were coming. Four warhounds were simply not going to fit in the rowboat. Not even if you stacked them.

The Mabari settled in after the mandatory sniffing and looking at Shaw with expressions of _are you very sure this is where we are supposed to be?_ "Have you over there in a moment," Kester said as he poled the platform away from the dock.

Kathil was sitting sidewise, her back against Jeseth. She glanced up at Kester, the man who was the last normal person many mages ever saw. Closed up in the Tower, surrounded by other mages and Templars, it was so easy to forget that the whole world wasn't like that. Kester belonged to a different world entirely. Probably not a better world, but at least a world a little more honest with itself about what it was.

He seemed to take his role as mages' last contact with their former lives seriously, even though few of them would ever remember his face or his voice. Kathil didn't remember arriving at the Tower very well, but she _did_ remember the piece of horehound candy that had somehow made it into her pocket on the way over. "Evrard mentioned that Zevran and Cullen and Lorn came through a few days ago," she said. "How were they holding up?"

"Both the elf and the Templar looked like they'd been in a bar fight, and the bar won," Kester said. He lifted his pole and set the butt end of it into one of the submerged stone pilings that demarcated the ferry's route. "The Mabari were fine, though. The little one tried to nick one of the oars when she got out."

"They never do grow out of that obsession with sticks." She glanced at Shaw, who was looking up at the looming walls of the Tower, studying it. "Have you heard any news from within the Tower since?"

Kester snorted. "They don't tell me anything. But I haven't seen your people since, if that's what you're asking. Funny, though. I'd never have expected to see _him_ again." He jerked his chin at Shaw. "Just goes to show that you never can tell."

"Why?" Kathil asked.

"I believe that the ferryman is referring to the incident that led to me being made Tranquil," Shaw answered. He did not look at them. "It was over thirty years ago. I suffered a romantic disappointment while an apprentice. The experience colored my judgment, and I sought revenge. I discovered some old books on summoning and called a demon to do my bidding. Three apprentice mages and two Templars died before the demon was put down, including the person I loved." He spoke in the same even tone all Tranquil used, utterly detached. The wind off the lake ruffled his dark hair. "I was made Tranquil a few hours after the incident. The First Enchanter at the time sent me out of the Tower, to Denerim, as he feared that friends of those who had died would exact more retribution for the crime. It is better to be rid of the drives and emotions that caused me to err so grievously. It is painless, to be as I am. Unlike before."

Both she and Kester were silent. The water whispered past the boat, Kester keeping them in motion with his long pole. Kathil scooted over to the side and put her arm over the side, trailing her fingers in the water. Lake Calenhad bore a deep chill in the heart of it, even now in the late summer. She could almost feel it, how currents moved through the icy depths.

_Ice is the daughter of water,_ she remembered one of the senior mages saying during a lesson. Who had that been? She could barely remember, now. She glanced at Shaw, who was perfectly still, Littine beside him. A murderer. Demon summoner.

Tranquil, and harmless.

"Did you regret what you had done? At least, for the few hours you were able?" she asked.

"I recall regretting my actions almost before I had completed the ritual, but being unable to stop it." Now he did look at her. "Why do you ask? I serve the sentence for my crimes, and I am better as I am than as I was before."

_Because cruelty is relative._

As was captivity.

Kathil shook her head. "I've never talked to a Tranquil mage who was sentenced to the ritual because of a crime other than blood magic, or because they feared the Harrowing. I wonder that they did not just kill you, or send you to the Aeonar."

"There were reasons. I am ordered not to speak of them." Shaw turned away again, and just like that the subject was closed.

_Who did you kill, Shaw? And which of them was your beloved?_

How long _had_ Greagoir been Knight-Commander at the tower? She had no idea. At least thirty years, from a few passing references Irving had made. Maybe longer. Longer than Irving had been First Enchanter, at any rate. A dragonfly whirred past her head and then stopped, hovering over the water. Its iridescent body flashed in the sun and then it was gone once more. Dragonflies. She'd never seen one before she'd left the Tower. She'd _believed_ Alistair when he'd told her that they stitched shut the mouths of people who were foolish enough to fall asleep near streams. Leliana had nearly fallen over laughing when Kathil had explained why she flinched every time one came near.

They came to the dock at last, the Mabari leaping from the boat even before they properly docked. They barked and tussled with each other as Kester helped Kathil up to the dock. "You take care of yourself," he said. "You know where the beacon is if you need to come back, right?"

If she needed to come back and the Templars were unwilling to let her leave, he meant. "I do," she said. "Thank you." She squeezed his hand and then let go, took a deep breath, and turned to the stairs that led to the Circle Tower.

She remembered a Templar telling her that it took four strong men to open the doors. Which was an out and out _lie_; the doors were massive, but the Avvars and the dwarves who had supposedly built the place had known a thing or two about engineering. The doors were so finely balanced that a child could open them, if he knew where to push.

That made the amount of fussing that the Templars did over the doors utterly maddening. She _could_ have used the sidestep to get through, but in this case, the ignorance of the Chantry when it came to things that she was able to do was bliss. Any magic that would make it easier for a determined mage to escape the Tower was going to be looked upon with suspicion. The doors swung outward, the hinges creaking, the Templars pushing it open doing a marvelously awful job of pretending it was heavy.

_Patience._

She had a quiet word with the Mabari, asking them a favor. Their voices had likely alerted the Tower that she was here, which meant that she could count on certain people to be in the entrance hall. She hoped, at least. The doors of the Tower swung open, and she paced inside. The Mabari flanked her, two on each side. Shaw trailed behind.

She knew that the morning light was blinding within the entrance hall, and that she and the Mabari would be seem as nothing but shadows against the clear summer light. She kept her head up and her expression calm, her hands relaxed at her side.

Within the hall, squinting against the light, were Zevran and Lorn, and beyond them Knight-Commander Greagoir. Zevran had one hand curled in the Mabari's collar, and for a moment he met her eyes with a half-smile. There were other Templars in the hall, some of them missing their helmets. She saw Carroll near the back, but all the others she could see were new. Nine Templars, total, including the ones closing the door behind her.

_Almost_ a fair fight.

She tried not to smile. Calculating battle odds was second nature now, as much habit as touching walls to leave a scent trail or making she knew where all the exits and all potential cover was in a room. She wished that Irving had shown up, but the First Enchanter no longer moved as quickly as he once had, and there were several flights of stairs between his office and the entrance hall.

It was slightly unfair that Irving was the one that age was taking badly, and Greagoir the one eternal as the stone of the Tower.

The light in the room dimmed as the Templars behind her swung the doors closed. _Three, two, one..._ And there was the _bang_ of the door shutting, followed by the ratcheting clicks of the locks. She blinked in the lantern-lit dim. "Knight-Commander," she said, and her voice was unexpectedly loud in the hall.

"Grey Warden." Greagoir's strong tenor voice rang in the entrance hall. The man had been filling rooms with his voice for many a year, and this was no exception. "I wondered when you would arrive."

"There was a small army of darkspawn between Denerim and here," she said. "I have a long letter with me from Alistair, but what it says, in short, is that these Mabari are a gift from the crown to the Circle of Magi as a gesture of friendship. Shaw, here, is only on loan."

And every Templar eye in the entrance hall—including Greagoir's!—was on the Mabari, and belatedly Kathil realized that the greeting committee was mostly for the warhounds. The Tower had no dogs, unlike the rest of Ferelden. Because she'd grown up in the Tower, she had never really missed them, but all Templars had a life before the Tower in a country that was collectively mad for canines. Lorn had put on quite a bit of weight when they had stayed here last winter. Kathil suspected it was because every Templar and most of the mages had been saving bits of their meals to feed him.

Of _course_ all who could get away from their duties would show up in the entrance hall to see the new canine residents.

"If someone could show Shaw and the Mabari to the kennels?" she suggested.

She saw most of the Templars stir, then look at Greagoir. "Carroll, show our new residents to their quarters, then come speak with me," the Knight-Commander said. "There are things you will need to know about your duties regarding the Warden." His gaze flicked over her and then landed on Shaw. His brows drew together slightly. Even if nobody else in the Tower remembered this Tranquil, Greagoir did. "Warden, Carroll will be leading your guard detail."

She favored him with a frosty look that was matched in kind by the Knight-Commander. "I understand." This was not the time or the place to get into a tussle with Greagoir about the fact that Cullen should be in charge of her guard, if she must have one. She could engage in the near-inevitable pissing match later. "And if you'll excuse me, sers, there are a few people here who I have not seen in _far_ too long."

Greagoir nodded, and Zevran let go of Lorn's collar. A moment later, Kathil was on one knee with her arms around her warhound's neck, laughing as Lorn tried to simultaneously wag his whole body and sniff his human all over. I missed you, I _missed_ you! said the thrashing tail. I missed you and you were _gone_ and you're _back_!

"I am," she said. "I'm happy to see you too, pup." There was a fierce delight in her; this was the longest she had been parted from her warhound since they had met for the first time at Ostagar, and he was almost a part of her now. "You are a handsome, good, _brave_ dog. You did what I asked."

There was a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Zevran there. She rose and caught him in a hug, holding him tightly. She felt his body mold to hers, the wiry strength of it against her own, more alike than different.

_Well. Soon to be much more different than alike._

She tried not to think about it now. "Thank you," she said. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you."

"You are welcome, my Grey Warden." His smooth voice was tinged with some emotion that she could not name. "I, as well. It has been far too quiet here for my liking."

"I don't start trouble _everywhere_ I go, Zev."

He chuckled and kissed her nose. "Do you not?"

And if they hadn't been in the entrance hall with an audience just then, she probably would have kissed him just for that. Instead, she took a deep breath. "How is Cullen?"

Zevran tensed, lines appearing at the outside corners of his eyes. "Alive," he said. "Come, we should speak in private."

She nodded and let him go, grabbing her pack and hoisting it. They walked through the double doors and into the hall; this time of day, the apprentice quarters were nearly deserted. All of the apprentices were either in the library or the workrooms. She saw one run down the hall and make a hard turn into one of the dormitory rooms, sprinting. Kathil almost laughed. That was so familiar; she'd done it countless times when she had forgotten something downstairs. Sure enough, within three breaths the same apprentice—a boy she vaguely recognized, about eight years old, one of the apprentices who had arrived while she'd been in residence this past winter—reappeared, a large book and a sheaf of notes under one arm. He held the too-long hem of his robe off the floor with his other hand as he scurried towards the library, vanishing around the gentle curve of the hallway.

It was quiet down here. It was so strange, that quiet, the sound of her and Zevran walking and Lorn's nails ticking on the floor almost the only sound she heard. Growing up here, there had always been the ambient sound of voices, of people moving, of spells being cast. Straining her ears, she could hear a few voices in the distance, but that was all.

The silence of the Tower reminded her far too much of certain ruins she had fought through. Reflexively, she looked around for the telltale webs of giant spiders. _No spiders, no darkspawn, no skeletons,_ she reminded herself. The dangers of the Tower were, in general, more subtle than mere creatures lairing in old, forgotten places.

They passed a Templar in the hall. Within the helm, she saw a brief movement, the man's eyes following them as they walked past. It was a new one; he had not yet learned how to relax into the watchful waiting that was the discipline of every Tower knight. He probably had his knees locked, too, which meant that he was probably going to fall over in a faint when he tried to move. She hid her smile, turning away from the armored man.

As they passed, she heard the Templar mutter something under his breath. She stiffened. Had he actually _said_ that? She glanced back at him, her eyes narrowed.

She noted the two dents in his breastplate, how he wore his sword. He was left-handed, which made what he'd said doubly foolish. It would make finding him later easy.

For now, she put him out of her mind. They walked past the door down into the basement and into the library. "One moment," she told Zevran. "I want to pick up a book." _Don't ask,_ she thought, giving him a warning look.

He didn't. She walked down the long stack of books—there was a place down near the end that was out of sight of the usual Templar posts. She and Jowan used to set one of the ladders there, so they could scamper up to the top of the bookcase unseen. The spot was marked with a long scratch in the floor made by some apprentice in days long past. She crouched, setting her pack down, and with one hand searched the bottom shelf while she quickly undid the buckle of one of the outside pockets with the other. Jowan poked his head out, whiskers quivering. "Good luck," she muttered as he scrambled out of the pocket and onto the floor, scampering away into the shadows. She grabbed a book more or less at random from the shelf, then stood.

She rejoined Zevran and Lorn, and together they walked through the library. There were only two classes currently in session, the apprentices divided up between them. Kathil looked for and found Connor in the second class, along with the three other apprentices she had been in charge of for a few months. The four of them were sitting together, doing a group exercise that she remembered well from her own student days. They pushed a globe of light around their small circle, flickering as it passed from control of one to another of them.

When they were good at it, they would be able to pass the light without a flicker, the transition between mages seamless. Jowan and she had gotten so good at it that they had been able to pass the light from one end of the library to the other without even being able to see each other. They had known each other that well.

Once upon a time, they had been a promising team.

When they reached the Senior Enchanter quarters, Zevran directed her to one of the guest rooms rather than the room that had been hers since she had passed her Harrowing. It was the same room they had given to Duncan when he had visited the Tower four years ago. At least it had a door—which was more than she could say for the other senior enchanter quarters, which were divided by tall bookcases with only niches at the back for privacy. "Subtle," she muttered as she closed the door. "They really don't want me here, do they?"

"Decidedly," Zevran said. He opened his arms as she dropped her pack on the bed, and she stepped into his embrace. She closed her eyes, breathing in his scent.

They were silent together for a long moment. Lorn pressed himself against the backs of her legs, leaning in on her.

Kathil finally broke that silence. "So. It's bad news, is it?"

"Moderately." Zevran drew her over to the bed, and they both sat down on the edge. Lorn hopped up beside Kathil and settled down with his head on her thigh. "The lyrium withdrawal had gone too far for anyone to reverse the process. They are now trying to get him through it alive. The First Enchanter seems to have some notion that it will succeed."

"Alive's one thing. Sane is another."

"It is, is it not?" He glanced at her. There was old bruise along his jaw and around his neck that she had missed seeing before. "They think it will be another ten days or so before the metal works itself out of his system. Once the withdrawal is complete, we will see what is left of our Templar."

She stroked Lorn's ears, the short fur on them silky under her fingertips. "You two did everything you could. You look like you got into it with him, though."

Zevran chuckled. "He tried to strangle me. I gave him a black eye for his trouble. The broken ribs were courtesy of Lorn, who tripped him when he tried to run away. It was...not a particularly pleasant excursion, once we found him. Fiann stayed with him, and refuses to leave his side now." He raised an eyebrow at her. "And what did you do with your pet apostate?"

Kathil smiled thinly. "He's around, in mouse form. I decided not to rile up the Tower any more than I had to, at least for the moment." _I should tell him._

Yes. She should.

But she wanted to wait until they saw what happened to Cullen, until they were away from the Tower, away from the Templars and Greagoir. Even in this room that was one of the more private ones in the Tower, there still could be ears to hear. And she wanted to wait until she could tell both Zevran and Cullen at the same time.

It was enough, for the moment, to sit here with the two of them, surrounded by the silent stone of the Tower, and abide.

*****

_Cullen:_

Light; darkness.

Darkness; light.

He tipped his face up to the sun and closed his eyes. The sky was cloudless, a perfect late-summer day. He'd spent the morning fixing fences; the neighbor's bull had gotten some ideas in his head about their cows last night, and had thrown himself at the fence on the pasture. There was more work to do, of course, but it was midday and it seemed a shame to let the beautiful day pass by without at least acknowledging the Maker's fine work.

"Dada!"

He turned and saw his youngest running towards him, her mop of red curls bobbing. Behind her was her older brother, with a long-suffering look on his face. He scooped the three-year-old up into his arms and chuckled as her fingers twined in his beard and tugged. "What are you doing out here, little one?"

The boy piped up, "Mom sent us to tell you to come in and wash up."

"He's lost track of ti-i-i-i-me!" the girl in his arms said, in a perfect imitation of her mother's gently annoyed tones.

Cullen kissed the girl's cheek. "Far be it from _me_ to keep your mother waiting," he said, and swung the girl up onto his shoulders.

She laughed and fisted her hands in his hair. "I'm tall, Dada!"

"Tall as the trees," he agreed. _Tall as the trees, deep as the sea, that's how much I love you._ He told them that every night when he tucked them in. He couldn't remember where he had gotten that little rhyme; perhaps some fragmentary memory of his own parents, long lost to him.

They walked back to the little house that was surrounded by garden, the flowers gently nodding their heads in the breeze, the pumpkins blushing orange by the fence. His wife was in the doorway of the house, drying her hands on a dish towel. "Daydreaming again?" she asked, and her smile was the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing he'd ever seen. It always had been. He went to kiss her, the child on his shoulders giggling.

His wife tilted her heart-shaped face up to him. Her eyes were blue as the summer sky. "I love you," she murmured.

But her hand on his arm was cold.

Cold as ice, cold as death, and there was a smell in the air sharp as starlight. And as he looked into her face, it _changed._

There was an ugly, knotted scar down the left side of her face, pulling her mouth into an unpleasant quirk, and her eyes were black as night, with the Fade moving deep in the pupils.

No.

_Tall as the trees, deep as the sea._

He was a Templar and she was a mage.

And her face was gone and the inhumanly perfect face of a demon remained, and the children were poppets filled with straw, and as he opened his eyes and opened them again there was stone, surrounding him, entombing him.

The loss clawed at his throat and his heart, and this was a cold world full of pain he had woken to. The Circle Tower.

_I want to go home._

But this _was _home.

"Drink this," a voice said, and the rim of a cup pressed against his lips. Obedient, he opened his mouth and let a thin, vaguely sweet liquid flow into his mouth. He swallowed.

"Iselle, run and tell the Grey Warden that he's awake," another voice said. "Quickly. Maker only knows how long it'll last this time." His vision was blurred; shadows moved just out of sight. "Cullen. Cullen, do you know who I am?"

He blinked. A face; eyes, nose, mouth, beard. "First Enchanter," he said, or _tried_ to say. It came out a croak. He coughed, tried again. This time it worked.

"Well, it's an improvement," Irving said. "You're not out of the woods yet, young man, but you're a sight better than you were. You might even live. Do you know where you are?"

"The Circle Tower." He could not keep the disappointment from his voice. The other place had been so _real_. More real than real, better, brighter. "How long have I been here?"

"You arrived, oh, about four days ago now." The First Enchanter smiled, just a little. "The lyrium has been working its way out of your system. You've been a bit...argumentative."

There was movement at the foot of the bed, and a warm and very wiggly body was abruptly perched on his chest. An industrious tongue swiped across his face. Cullen sat up, dislodging the dog—Fiann! How could he have forgotten Fiann? There had been no Mabari in the other place. He wrapped his arms around here and she snuggled into his chest, putting her head on his shoulder. He had been _broken_, said the enthusiastic wiggling and the tongue that was still trying to wash the underside of his chin. But the mages were _fixing_ him!

"She's refused to leave your side the whole time you've been here." Irving was looking at the pup fondly. "The Mabari have greater hearts than we give them credit for, I have become convinced."

Of course she had a great heart. She was _Fiann_.

"There will be time to talk later, I hope," the First Enchanter said. "But there is someone here to see you, Cullen." He got up and walked across the room (_infirmary_, his mind belatedly filled in) and disappeared.

In his place were a mage with a scarred face who was wearing formal robes, and an elf whose face had tattoos down each side. Both looked worried. And familiar.

_Kathil and Zevran._

And with _that_, even more memory came flooding back.

_Andraste in your mercy, preserve me._

Cullen looked at the two of them, and remembered. A violet cage. Demons. Rotting bodies. Love, false love, the easy deception of demons, the way they offered the things he could not admit that he wanted. Remembered ranting, _they must all die, it's the only way to be sure that the evil is gone, that their sin is washed away._

Remembered what was between the three of them, and felt shame. How could he have been so _weak_?

His feelings must have been plain on his face, because Kathil flinched. "We just heard you were awake," she said. He had known this woman for over a decade, and right now it was is if she were a stranger. As if some part of his soul lay stunned and silent on the floor between them. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've had a legion beating on me." He pressed his lips together. "What concern is it of yours, _mage_?"

He saw the dagger he'd made out of that last word hit home, saw the brief flash of pain on her face, and felt something that was vaguely like victory. But that faded into ice as he saw the mage straighten her shoulders, her dark gaze going hard and cold. "You are in my command, Grey Warden, and you are my Templar. That does not change."

And now he remembered that, too, and the surge of clawing hunger in his gut reminded him that he was no longer a Tower knight. The world tilted around him, and he closed his eyes. Fiann shifted in his arms, snuggling closer.

When he opened his eyes again, they were gone, but they had been replaced by shadows sliding along the walls. Translucent faces blinked at him from the ceiling.

He prayed, but it was no use.

*****

_Jowan:_

The Tower was bleeding.

He kept seeing things out of the corners of his eye; he would have thought that he might be going mad, except for that strange, nagging feeling that somewhere the Tower was leaking something vital, that something was broken.

It hadn't taken him long to locate the books on blood magic; they were stored in the First Enchanter's office, under lock and key. The key hadn't been _easy_ to obtain, but he'd managed it. The Templars left Irving's office alone as long as he wasn't in it, and Jowan had attached a curtain purloined from the storerooms over the door to block any light that might think about escaping around beneath or around the door. He was scrutinizing the contents of the cupboard that he'd just unlocked by lamplight, deciding what to take.

There were a fair number of books on blood magic in here, some of them familiar; Jowan snagged _The Song of Flesh_ and _Vermiul's Mastery_ from the stacks right off. He picked out a few more that looked interesting, including one apparently titled _The Mage Solitary: On Being an Apostate_. (_Apparently_, because the author of the tome had terrible writing, and it had taken him a few minutes to puzzle out even the title on the cover.) That one wasn't going to be particularly germane to his current objective, but it looked like it might contain information he'd need. On the bottom shelf was a box of the type usually used to hold unbound folios or rolled scrolls. Assuming that the box contained some older, probably fragmentary works, he pulled it out and opened it.

It was filled with neither scrolls nor folios. Instead, there were letters, unfolded with bits of wax still clinging to the places where they had been sealed. All of them were addressed to Irving. Curious, Jowan started pulling out letters and skimming them. Mostly, they were letters from Revered Mothers asking the First Enchanter's opinion on possible mage children. Some of the letters seemed to be personal correspondence of the exchanging opinions about the weather variety.

Nothing interesting. The First Enchanter's private life seemed to be just about as boring and fusty as his public life. _There's a pity._ He was only halfway through the box, but it was obvious that there was nothing of interest in here. He gathered the letters he'd already pulled out, intending to put them back in the box.

Then he paused, frowning, and pulled one last letter out of the box. It was from one Ser Uallas. Jowan didn't recognize the name, but the line beneath the name nearly stopped his heart.

_Of the prison Aeonar._

He pulled the letter out of the box. _This is my report for the year of 9:33 Dragon._ Last year, then. He scanned the top of the sheet; the report had been written at the beginning of this year. _We have twenty-eight imprisoned here as of the end of this year. List of intakes and deaths for this year follows._

Jowan read down the letter. The first list was of the thirteen men and women who had been brought to the Aeonar that year and had survived to be reported. The second list was the fifteen people who had been there at the beginning of the year and remained there at the end.

The third list, the longest, was of those who had died during the year. He read down, slowly. Dreading.

Halfway through the list, he saw the name.

_Lily, formerly of the Circle Tower, formerly of Gwaren. Died near midsummer._

She had lived in the Aeonar for three years before she died.

What was worse—that she had died there, or that she had survived for three years in one of the worst places Thedas owned before she had done so?

_Lily, Lily, Lily. _Her name was a thundering heartbeat in his ears. He had thought that—someday—

The small hairs on the back of his neck rose. He was not alone.

Slowly, he turned.

Near where the light from his small lamp failed and fell into velvety darkness, a figure crouched. She wore ragged Chantry robes over her thin body, her dark hair falling into her face. The fingers of one hand touched the ground, the ends of her fingers blackened. She raised her head.

Her gaze bored into him, through him, a mouth once beautiful gone thin-lipped and savage. "I don't know who you are," she whispered, and it was Lily's voice, a ragged and broken thing. There was torn flesh around her neck and her wrists. "I don't know."

Lily stood, and was gone into the darkness.

A minute later, Jowan was a mouse once more, scurrying down the shadowed and slumbering hallways of the Tower.


	4. Of the Dead, Unquiet

_Because like all true believers  
I am truly skeptical of all that I have said._

_—The World Can Wait, Over the Rhine_

_   
_

* * *

_  
_

_Kathil:_

"So what you're telling me is that there's no way you can put the memory block back into place."

The First Enchanter stood on the other side of his desk from her, shaking his head. "Not without renewing his addiction to lyrium. And even then, I'm not sure it would work. I would think that Cullen will be more useful as a Grey Warden without the addiction."

She fought not to grind her teeth. She _did_ indulge in a bit of pacing, though if she had been attempting to intimidate Irving she would have forced herself to remain still. "I did mention that he reports directly to me, didn't I? He can't do his _job_ if he hates mages, Irving. A Tower Templar can. A Grey Warden _cannot_. Not in Ferelden, anyway." She remembered Montclair hissing _maleficar_ in her ear as he ran her through. Her chest still hurt, some mornings.

Irving raised one steel-colored eyebrow. "It seems to me that one's personal feelings about mages have little influence on how well one kills darkspawn. I originally put the memory block on him because we were short on Templars. Greagoir was convinced that Cullen was going to do something...rash, if we did nothing, and the memory block was kinder than imprisoning him. Now he is under your watchful eye, not ours."

"I need him," she said. "And I need him sane." She stopped pacing, turned to face Irving, folded her hands behind her back with her shoulders straight and her head high. (And _that_ was something Leliana had schooled her on for weeks—how to assume that posture and look like an adult restraining her power rather than a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar.) "You tell _me_ how that's going to be accomplished without that memory block."

"The memory spells are not simple. We can do one block of time, no more, and it will not work if there is too much to remind the subject of the memories we have buried." He was watching her, very still indeed. "The spell was probably coming loose even before Cullen went into withdrawal. From what the young man said, you are...intimately connected with what the demons did to him."

"So the answer is no." She eyed the oddly-shaped glass ornament on Irving's desk that was currently holding down a batch of loose parchment. That would make a _very_ satisfying crash against the wall if she threw it. Her fingers curled against each other behind her back, twining together painfully. "So, we just let him suffer?"

Irving shoved his chair back, the wooden legs screeching on the stone, and stood. "Once the lyrium withdrawal is complete, if he lives, he will simply have to do what thousands of others do. Learn to live with it. It is possible, or so I hear."

Kathil reined in her temper, hard. She let the silence lengthen as she breathed. The Veil was starting to feel just _slightly_ shredded, and the two Templars on the door were not Cullen. They would hit her with the cleansing hard and then try to kill her, if they thought she had lost control. "I apologize, First Enchanter," she said, letting the formal term of address put distance between them. "Cullen is a friend, and his talents have been very useful. I mislike the idea of him being in pain that we could alleviate."

"A friend, is he?" Cold electricity ran down her spine. _Do not underestimate this man._ Irving had not become First Enchanter by being stupid. "Templars. If I could have a word alone with the Grey Warden?" Kathil heard creaks and the sound of metal brushing against metal; she imagined that the two Templars were looking at each other. "You can stay right outside the door, if you feel the need."

The Templars didn't argue, instead clattering out the door and closing it behind them. Irving crossed his arms. "I know you, Kathil," he said, and there was something flinty about his tone. "You would not be so insistent if Cullen were merely a _friend_. We do keep an eye on attachments forming between mages and Templars."

"We are Grey Wardens, and _both_ of our personal lives are our own." She could not help the edge that had come into her voice. "He is my Templar, Irving. He stands watch over me as much as the Templars here do for the Circle—not just to kill me if I become an abomination, but to prevent me from losing control in the first place. We've worked together for almost half a year, and we've gotten to the point where I trust his judgment. He is _not_ replaceable, and I have to be able to rely on him."

Irving shook his head. "You may not have a choice. I would replace the memory block if I could, Kathil, but maybe it's better that I cannot. Let him be a whole person, Grey Warden. Let him have his whole life."

And there was everything that the Circle never spoke of hanging in the air between them. How there were too many people in this Tower who'd had pieces of their lives excised; childhoods, powers, potentials, _souls_. How it went beyond mercy into self-mutilation. _We cut our hearts out of our chests before anyone else can do so._

She only wished that the part of Cullen's life that had been given back to him was not one that would likely end up making him hate her.

Well, she would work on Irving about Cullen later. For now, she made herself relax. "So, Irving, talk to me about why I'm going to find a bunch of mages and Templars who want to be Grey Wardens at Amaranthine. Not that the Wardens can't use the extra firepower, but whatever possessed the Templars to leave as well?"

Now Irving's countenance went just a little blank, a little wary. "They had their reasons, I believe. It made it easier to convince Greagoir to let those depart who wished to go. The Grey Wardens have done much for us in recent days. It seemed only fair to let the Circle repay the Wardens as best we can."

"But why _them_? Petra, I know why—too many stories from Wynne. But Kinnon? Hobart? Maker, _Kelli_? I would never have thought that anything could have pried Kelli out of the Tower! And Cullen told me that both Guaire and Bran went from the Templars. Of all the people—"

"They are gone. Never mind the reasons." Irving sat down again, evidently expecting that the subject was closed. "You can speak to them when you get to Amaranthine."

She spread her hands. "Irving, what is going _on_? I've been here two days and nobody will talk to me. There are all of ten full enchanters in the Tower at the moment, including me. We're outnumbered by the apprentices three to one. Half a year ago, there were twenty-two mages left. What's happened to everyone?"

He shook his head. "Nothing you can do anything about. If that is all, Grey Warden?"

_I'm going to give myself a headache if I keep beating my head against this wall._ "It is," she said, trying not to show her frustration. "I will speak with you later." She walked out of his office, nodding to the Templars when she opened the door. She lengthened her stride as she walked down the curved hallway. Irving was making it very clear that she was no longer a mage of the Circle, merely a guest in the Tower. Simply a Grey Warden.

_Just the person who saved the Maker-forgotten Circle._ She thought, sometimes, that she should have just let Greagoir invoke the Right of Annulment. But then she would never have traveled with Wynne, and Connor would have died. There were days that she wondered if it would have been better just to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. So many had died or been turned, and the whole place felt as though it were dying by inches. The few mages who were left rattled around in the Tower like a child trying to wear her father's armor.

There was movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw a figure disappearing into one of the side entrances to the upper library. That made no sense—she should have passed whoever it was, and she was not so far absorbed in her thoughts as to miss one of the few people left in the Tower. Frowning, she turned and followed the figure.

The library was empty at the moment; it must be shift change, since the two Templar posts in here were vacant. Kathil cocked her head, listening. There—the scrape of a slippered foot against stone. She headed in the direction of the noise. "Hello?" she called. "Is someone there?"

She came around the end of a row of bookcases and stopped dead. The woman who stood with her back to Kathil was tall and slim, wearing the robes of an apprentice mage. Her dark hair fell in a curly mass to her waist. Kathil didn't remember _any_ apprentices with that hair—and most of the current ones were under twelve years old. This was a woman grown, probably old enough to take her Harrowing—

The woman turned.

Kathil's heart seized.

_Andraste's knickers—_

She was dark of skin and bright of eye, with a long nose and a thoughtfully pursed mouth. She had one hand resting on her chest. And she was familiar, painfully so.

_Sati._

"Strange where you find yourself, isn't it?" Sati said, almost cheerfully. "Never thought I would see this place again."

"You—you're _dead_," Kathil managed, her voice strangled. "You took your Harrowing, and you failed."

"I suppose that's right," she said, almost carelessly. Sati dropped the hand that had been on her chest, revealing a great hole over her heart, the edges bloody and ragged. "I asked you for help, and you refused. Why help your precious little snot-nosed _friend_, and not me? If I could have escaped, you could have joined me later. I loved you."

"I helped Jowan because I didn't help you, and you died." Kathil's heart was hammering against her ribs. "I couldn't stand to have more blood on my hands—"

"And just _look_ at you now, chouette." Sati's smile held neither affection nor mirth. It was a blade that was like to slit Kathil's throat. "Your hands positively _drip_. How many people have you killed? Do you even remember?" She toyed with a beaded necklace that wrapped around her throat, running her fingers over the green glass.

"No. I don't." She swallowed. _I am going mad._ "What are you doing here, Sati? You're dead. I know you're dead, you know you're dead. So why are you talking to me like you're alive?"

Sati shifted where she stood, putting a hand on her hip, and Kathil felt her throat close. That motion was so familiar, so beloved. She had died a little when she'd lost Sati, back in the days before she had started losing so many _other_ things. "Did you know that when I took my Harrowing, the demon that tempted me pretended to be you? You'd changed your mind, you said. You'd done some research. There was a way out. We went to find the door together. I knew it wasn't you, that it couldn't be you, but I wanted to believe. I loved you far too well, Kathil. And now that I've found you..."

Booted footsteps approached. Kathil turned and saw a Templar round the corner. The helmed man stopped. "I thought I heard you talking," he said. She recognized the voice echoing in the helm; it was Carroll. "Was there someone else here?"

She glanced at where Sati had stood. Nobody was there. "Just talking to myself," she said. "Tell me, Carroll. What happened to Keir and Moira? Did they fail their Harrowings?" The two apprentices had been almost ready for their Harrowings when Kathil had left in the spring. Now, nobody would speak their names. "And there are a few younger apprentices missing, too. There was that adorable little elven girl—Ife, I think her name was. I know there was an exodus a month or two ago, but I didn't think they would let apprentices go with those who left."

The Templar's armor creaked as he stiffened. "I...we're forbidden to talk about it, Warden." His voice sounded pained. "Please. Don't ask."

"Who gave that order? Greagoir, or Irving?"

"The Knight-Commander. We're not supposed to talk to you about anything, really."

Kathil folded her arms. "And me without Shale behind me to threaten to crush things you aren't using anyway. Your _Highness._" She grinned savagely. "By the way, the Antivans don't even _have_ a queen. But put on a dress and we can take you there and see if we can get you in line for the throne. Evidently, being a pretender to the throne is the Antivan national sport."

"That is low, Warden." The Templar removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm. "You fight dirty, you know."

"And I'm alive because of it. Spill, Carroll. I promise I won't tell anyone who told me."

He lowered his voice, glancing over his shoulder. "Honestly, I don't know that much. I mostly get assigned to the docks. I do know what happened to Moira, I was standing at her Harrowing. She used the lyrium font and collapsed, like everyone does—only she just stopped breathing. I think she was dead from the moment she touched the lyrium."

"That's not normal. What did Greagoir say about it, or Irving?"

Carroll shook his head. "Irving didn't say anything, just looked sick and left. Greagoir told the Templars there not to say anything. It was just a failure. Never mind that I don't think she had _time_ to contact a demon in the Fade, and when an apprentice fails the demon always takes their body. She was the second to die in a month, and from the whispers I think Keir had the same thing happen to him. All I really know is that Irving mentioned that it was almost a blessing, the hole Uldred carved through the mages. We don't have any who will be ready for their Harrowings for another year, at least."

"What about the ones who left?" she asked. "I never thought anything could get Guaire out of the Tower."

The Templar grimaced, rubbing the side of his head. "Petra happened. I don't know exactly what went on between those two, Petra's not the type to tease the Templars—" _Unlike you,_ said his sidelong glance at her— "But Petra announced she was leaving and it was like something _changed_, like a storm blowing over the lake. I mean, looking back, he never _said_ anything about her or any of the mages, but he stood at her Harrowing, and he always seemed to be posted near her."

_Stood at her Harrowing._ There was a pattern forming there, one that Kathil wasn't sure how well she liked. "And you don't know anything about the missing apprentices, the young ones?"

"All I know is that they died. I helped bury them. We were ordered to say nothing to anyone about them." Carroll shifted, obviously uncomfortable. "They were just _kids_. I don't remember any of the really young ones dying before, except that boy who fell down the stairs in front of everyone a few years ago. And the ones that died when—well, you know. Uldred." He ran a mailed hand over his hair.

It occurred to Kathil that she never saw any of the apprentices alone, now; they always went around in threes and fours. In fact, _nobody_ in the Tower seemed to want to be alone, ever. Was it possible that she wasn't the only one receiving visits from the dead? She had thought it was the silence of the Tower that had them scared, but...

She shook her head. Carroll was looking a little concerned. "I think I should talk to the Knight-Commander." At Carroll's alarmed look, she added, "Later. And I promise your name won't come into it. I should head back to my room. I take it you're to accompany me?"

"I am." He fell in at her shoulder as she stepped past him towards the hallway. It was so familiar that she almost winced. That was _Cullen's_ place. "Greagoir is going to find out," the Templar muttered. "And then he is going to kill me, have Irving bring me back from the dead, and kill me _again_."

"If it helps, I'm pretty sure Irving won't learn the necromantic spells. Principle of the thing," she told him. "So he'll only kill you the once."

Carroll chuckled weakly and put his helmet back on. They walked back to the guard quarters in silence, Kathil's mind working. She'd never heard of visitations like she'd received today outside of tall tales. The dead went to the Fade, and then to the Maker's side. They didn't come _back_.

So there must be another explanation. But what?

*****

_Lorn:_

He patrols his tall stone territory, stopping to investigate corners and niches, his nose to the ground. This will not be his territory for much longer, his human says, but while he is here it is _his_, and even though he has been showing the other warhounds all of its secrets, there are some things that he has kept to himself.

Like this garden, which is hidden away in one of what his human always calls the _spur towers_, where few go. The garden is protected by sheets of glass from the lake storms, and it is always warm even during the darkest of winter days. It is not a garden as he has usually encountered; here most things are grown in boxes on stands, tall enough for the lower parts of the plants to be at his eye level. It makes for _very_ unsatisfying digging, to have to rear up on his hind legs and work the soil from that awkward position.

The garden has grown tangled from neglect, since he was last here. There's a heavy, sharp smell in the air; some of the trees, the ones whose fruits make him sneeze when he tries to bite them, are blooming. Other things are rotting; a whole section of the garden has gone dry and brown and dusty.

But it's still a garden, and it's still got some dirt to dig in. He rears up and plants his front paws on the edge of one of the boxes, snuffling at the soil. Perhaps he can find something to bring back to Fiann, who leaves the dust-knight's side only reluctantly and who is missing out on all the best things about this tall stone place, like the kitchen and the library that has all _sorts_ of old books to sample. (His human has told him that he is only to chew the corners of the books, and put them back when he is done. He believes this is a reasonable restriction.)

Lorn pauses, and raises his head. Underneath the smell of the garden is another scent, a familiar one. He cocks his head and gives an interrogative whine, then gets down from the box and turns, tasting the air.

There.

By a skinny excuse for a tree, a figure—

_He is on the battlefield, trotting alongside his human. The darkspawn have retreated for the moment, beaten back by the blades and teeth of their allies. They are patrolling the edges of the field, stepping over bones with shreds of black flesh still clinging to them. The scent of darkspawn blood is everywhere._

_He is happy to be here, fighting alongside his human. This was his first real battle, and his human reaches down to ruffle Lorn's ears. "Good boy," his human says, his voice low and gruff. Lorn dances in place, tongue lolling. His human is a knight who guards the pack leader, and sometimes he smells a bit sour, like sadness. His human has a mate and pups back at his den, and he misses them. Lorn approves of the mate and pups. He especially likes the smallest, the girl, who smells a little like fire sometimes. She slips him bits of her dinners, despite being admonished not to feed him._

_It is a _good_ day._

_Then—_

_No longer._

_The darkspawn rise up around them, and his human draws his blade, and they are fighting, and fighting. _Ambush,_ sings the word in Lorn's blood. His human slips in the mud and goes to one knee, and two of the darkspawn fall on him, and though Lorn is ripping and tearing the darkspawn keep coming. _

_When the darkspawn are all dead, Lorn goes to nudge his human. _Get up.

_But his human does not move. _Get up.

_Lorn knows enough to know that his human is dead, not sleeping. But it is still baffling. He paces around his human, whining. _Get up, get up.

_His human stays still, and there are ravens landing nearby, croaking derisively to each other. Lorn does not feel well; there is something like burning in his stomach, spreading out to his skin. He vomits, but it does not help._

_He lies down next to his human, keeping an eye on the ravens, and waits._

The scent is familiar, the figure familiar, but the last time he smelled this was on the battlefield, and the ravens were hopping closer. "Good dog," says the figure, and Lorn wags his tail, unsure. In his experience, once people die, they mostly do not get up again. And if they do, they are mad, hungry things suitable only for biting and tearing. They do not stand and look and say _good dog_.

His former human approaches. "Such a good dog, such a brave dog." Step; step again. "I've been looking for you for so long, dog."

But beneath the smell of human is another smell. Rot and lyrium and _demon_.

Lorn howls and springs forward, fastening his great jaws on the human's throat, or he would if the human was there and not shredding like smoke, like paper, and Lorn crashes into a garden box as the figure wails and vanishes. The box collapses and dumps dirt on Lorn and all over the floor. He kicks his way out from beneath the box and gets to his feet, shaking his head. He spits something small and hard out of his mouth—a little round thing, like the shiny things that the demon wore on its wrist.

The demon is gone as if it never existed, and Lorn is covered in dirt. He sniffs his flank and swipes a mournful tongue over it. He knows what this means.

A bath.

But! There are demons in the Tower, and he will hunt them down and shred them all, every last one. The thought cheers him up immensely. Lorn trots out of the garden, heading towards the stairs and the main part of the Tower. His human needs to know about the demons, and maybe the bath can be put off until _after_ they finish their hunt.

Then maybe he can find and bite whatever is bothering the dust-knight. He _whuffs_, excited, and breaks into a run.

*****

_Zevran:_

His Grey Warden was keeping a secret.

Not that this was unusual, so to speak, but it was unlike her not to at least tell him what was going on. He was almost sure it had something to do with Jowan, who was keeping out of sight somewhere in the Tower. But when he tried to pry (gently; Kathil did not take well to being interrogated) she deflected him, telling him that they would need to talk once they left the Tower.

He had no idea what had happened during those five days they had been separated, and it was driving him ever so _slightly_ mad, not knowing. He thought he would suggest a trip to the Spoiled Princess in the evening; Cullen had to stay under the care of the mages, but they did not, and getting out of the Circle Tower might prove a balm to both of their souls. There had been too much friction between them since she had arrived at the Tower, and not the pleasant friction of bedsport.

Thinking of this, he dug through the wardrobe that they had both unpacked their clothing into, looking for the blue shirt that Kathil liked so well. There was a soft sound behind him, and he paused. Again, the sound.

He was not alone.

Zevran straightened and turned slowly. There was a woman crouched on the bed, looking at him. Straight, dark hair in many thin braids framed her lovely face, tilted green eyes and lush lips. She wore a low-cut shirt and trousers that fit her like a second skin, and there was a twist of amusement on that perfect mouth.

Across her neck, a wound gaped like a bloody grin.

She straightened, catching a bedpost in her hand. There were other wounds on her, cuts on the outsides of her forearms, a long slash along her side. None bled. "Afternoon, lover," she said in Antivan, and her voice was a low purr. She shouldn't have been able to speak with that wound in her neck, but that was the _least_ of what was not making sense right now. "Miss me?"

"Rinna." There was a long dagger in his hand, a blade he did not remember drawing. "This must be some foul magic."

"Must it?" She swung around the bedpost, then dropped smoothly to the floor. Ah, she was grace itself; he had almost forgotten. Everything she was depended on that grace. The beads fastened to the ends of her braids clicked together as she moved. "Perhaps I just got bored and came for a visit."

She took a step towards him; her feet were bare, just the same as they had been when he and Talisein had killed her. _She is dead. This must be some trick._ "You are dead, so either you are a demon or someone has put something _genuinely_ horrific in the water of the Tower," he said, not moving, watching her.

Rinna smiled. "A demon, in a Tower full of Templars? Perhaps a few years ago, when there were still mages foolish enough to invite them. Not today. Perhaps I am merely your conscience, come for a visit. Perhaps we should catch up, lover." She spun in place, her braids flying out and settling with an avalanche of little clicks. She could move entirely silently when she wished; she had spent almost a decade with bells instead of beads in her hair, and she was beaten every time one of her teachers heard a single peal. Every motion she made was deliberate, every sound. "I heard you have a new girl now. Is she as pretty as me, Zevran? Does she taste as sweet as I did?"

"None of that is your business." It was becoming harder to remember that what stood in front of him was a _thing_, an illusion. It moved like Rinna, spoke like Rinna. "What do you want?"

"Not as pretty as me, then. Pity." Rinna laughed. _Click, click, click._ "I want nothing. I know things, lover. I know your new girl keeps secrets from you. What sort of thing could she be hiding? Perhaps she is going to leave you. Perhaps she is going to make up with that _adorably_ broody blood mage of hers and go see how well his power works on a King. Or a Queen."

"She would _not_."

"Wouldn't she? You don't know her as well as you think you do." She bared her teeth at him briefly. "Still. You have not changed, Zevran. Still the same as you were the day that you killed me. Still the elf who corrupts everything he touches. And what you cannot taint, you kill. So, which is she? Is her will to resist what she is becoming crumbling away? Or is she a target?"

Zevran narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean, what she is becoming?"

Rinna touched her fingers to the edge of the wound across her throat. "You know what I mean. You have seen it. You have seen her change, slowly, becoming colder." Her bright eyes held a look of triumph. "You are hers as you were once mine, Zevran. And for both of us, you are the blade that turns in the hand of the wielder."

He moved before he realized he had made the decision to attack her. Rinna spun away from his blade, drawing two knives of her own. "It's time to play, is it?" Her beads clicked, settling in place. "Going to try to kill me again? Poor little Zevran, trapped inside the dying Tower."

Zevran did not reply, only set himself for an attack again. They danced forward and back. Her blades reflected the light strangely; they had on them a slick of what he assumed was poisoned oil. As he lunged, she leaped back onto the bed. "Time was when we would have ended a bout like this in bed, no?"

"Time was." He could not find it within himself to regret those days, even now. She dove off the bed to the side, rolling as she hit the floor and coming to her feet. He did not follow, despite the opening she left him. Instead, he stepped to the side, falling back just a little.

Rinna chuckled and exploded into motion, taking three steps towards him. Zevran dodged and brought his knife up; Rinna shifted her weight and flew past him without touching him. The end of one of her braids hit his blade, and he felt just the slightest resistance as the sharp edge sheared through it. The braid fell to the floor with a tick almost lost in the sound of their feet and their breathing.

There was a rap at the door. Startled, Zevran looked at the door, and as it opened glanced at where Rinna had just been. She was gone, and the opening door revealed Kathil, looking a bit nonplused. "What are you doing, Zev?"

"Shadow sparring." The lie came too easily to his lips. _Attempting to kill what is long dead_ just didn't have the same ring to it. He sheathed his blade. "Tell me, how did your conversation with the First Enchanter go?"

Kathil groaned and closed the door behind her. "I thought Irving would be reasonable. I mean, he likes me, I know he likes Cullen. But nothing I say to him _works_. I might as well be speaking Orlesian, for all the good talking to him does me." She dropped down into a chair and put her head in her hands. "He won't even give me any details on what's going on here. I think coming back to the Tower may have been a mistake. There's something happening, but I can't see it to fix it—if it's even fixable."

He went to her, put a hand on her shoulder. "The First Enchanter is a man with a core of steel," he said, thinking. "Pleasant enough on the outside, but once he has made up his mind about something there is no dissuading him. You may have more luck with the Knight Commander, yes?"

"Greagoir?" She shook her head. "The man dislikes mages in general and me in particular. He's worse than Irving."

"He may surprise you," Zevran said. He combed his fingers through Kathil's hair, and she sighed and leaned towards him, putting her head against his hip. "Irving and Greagoir seem to be the same man, inside-out. The First Enchanter covers his great intelligence and determination with kindness. He must be like a father to all the mages, and they must confide in him. The Knight Commander is a hard man, and stubborn as stone, but I have seen him work with his men. His care for them is genuine. Get beneath his armor, so to speak, and you may find him more helpful, no?"

"You _would_ want to get beneath his armor, Zev." She straightened, glancing up at him. "You really think he'd talk to me?"

Zevran motioned toward the weapon rack where their various blades were stored. At the top, in pride of place, was Spellweaver. The mage blade's lightning was quiescent at the moment, without a hand to hold it. "You speak his language," he said. "Politics here are rather _direct_, are they not?"

Kathil's mouth twisted in a small, sharp smile. "I do think some exercise would do me good. The Templars should be sparring at this hour, shouldn't they? I'm going to have to change, though." She got up and headed for the wardrobe, and Zevran remembered his idea about going to the Spoiled Princess that evening.

He opened his mouth to make the suggestion and then closed it as he saw something he had not before—a glint of light on the floor, near where Rinna had last stood. Kathil was shucking her robe, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye as he bent to look at the glittering thing on the floor. (Those _legs_. Mage robes were very nearly a hanging crime on her. Though he appreciated the fact that she often did not feel obligated to wear a single stitch under them.)

He picked up the object, rolling it between his fingers. It was a bead made of blue glass—not quite like Rinna used to wear in her hair, but close. There was no evidence of the rest of the braid he had cut off of her.

Just the bead, and a thousand questions that he could not answer.

But before he could ask any of them, there was a familiar _thump_ and the door banged open, through it barging a large and excessively _filthy_ Mabari, barking about demons, demons in the Tower, demons that shredded at a bite—

The bead went into his pocket as they followed Lorn to where he had seen a demon. He did not forget about it, so much as just...set it aside.

Too many questions, and he was like enough to not enjoy the answers.

*****

_Jowan:_

The space he sat in was just long enough for him to stretch out full-length on the floor, narrow enough that he could not fully extend his arms out when lying down. It felt like a coffin, this small hidden space created by an accident of architecture in the Tower. Sometime in the last century, one of the First Enchanters had ordered several of the rounded rooms of the Tower squared off. The new walls had dead space behind them, and over the years some of the mortar between the stones had crumbled. This one had a mouse-sized hole near the bottom of the wall, just large enough for him to squeeze through in his other form. Once inside, he was safe, and hidden.

So he'd thought.

He was trying to work, with _Vermiul's Mastery_ open in front of him and a page of hastily scribbled notes in his hand. He had a solution for Kathil's problem, but it was going to be tricky to implement. And sometimes, when he looked up, Lily was there.

Like now.

She never said anything, just stood or crouched, the blackened tips of her fingers scrabbling against the stone, the bracelet around her wrist made of beads that were cracked and crazed, colors obscured by soot. She looked at him, baffled, not blaming. She was not angry. Just confused.

So was he, and his heart was breaking over and over again, in this tiny space between the walls.

His vision blurred. He was trapped here in the Tower until Kathil decided to leave. He could abandon this spot, find another hiding place, but he suspected that Lily would just find him again. Jowan had tried to talk to her. She never answered. Just the silent _staring_, and her abrupt appearances and departures.

Worse than the cell in the basement of Redcliffe Castle. Worse than all of the indignities of learning to live outside the Tower. Worse than returning to the woman who had once been his best friend and finding her nearly unrecognizable. Worse than all of it.

Lily was gone again, and he rested his head against the stone wall that was cold despite the fact that it was still late summer. Lily's absence was almost worse than her presence. She could come back at any moment, and often did. He had woken last night to see her standing over him, her eyes shining faintly in the dim light from the lantern he kept shuttered but still burning.

Jowan had never been afraid of darkness. He was now.

*****

_Cullen:_

It was a lie.

_Tall as the trees, deep as the sea._

Was it so terrible, to want this to be the truth? To wish for an ordinary life, ordinary comforts? _Sin_, whispered the voices. _Heresy._

Cullen was pulled back over and over again to the infirmary, to the mages who looked at him with faces either fearful or pitying, to this Maker-forgotten thing named _duty_. And each waking was a fresh heartbreak, losing a life and a family over and over again.

He was awake now, fresh from the dreams that did not fade as they usually did, dreams that clung to his skin and mind in terrifyingly exact detail: the smell of his daughter's hair, the gritty feeling of dirt on his hands. He had to fight, he knew. It was lyrium withdrawal. _Confusion, disorientation to time and place, persistent delusions, hallucinations that rapidly escalate into violence._ Madness, in other words. Fiann was snuggled into his side, a warm presence that was perhaps the only good thing in the world right now.

This was different from the weeks that he had spent tormented by the desire demons. The desire demons had offered him love, all the pleasures of the flesh, all the things the Templars thought about in the darkness and silence of the barracks. All of the things one might think as the mages walked past them, whispering to each other. Things that were so easily _obtainable_, that one's will had to be made of iron to resist.

This time, the visions were showing him what might have been, had his mother not been a mage. Or if he had stayed in Woodson as a scribe rather than join the Templars. The visions were of things that he could never have. It was not a matter of resisting these things. It was a matter of surfacing from the madness into cold and bitter sanity, the emptiness of acknowledging that, _yes_, some part of him wanted those things, had always wanted them.

Cullen rolled onto his side, curling up like a child around a still-sleeping Fiann; at least they had done him the favor of not tying him to the bed. Something small and hard dug into his hip. "What now?" he muttered, shifting to dislodge whatever it was.

_Whatever_ was a bead, a red glass one, half the size of his thumbnail. There were two more of its close kin in the bed, he found, one by his knee and one nestled by his pillow. Some mage's fancy, he supposed. They had been in and out of here at all hours of the day, poking and prodding him, making him drink things. Irritated, he threw the beads across the empty infirmary. They made a clatter against the far wall. If he were _very_ lucky, one of them might find its way under a mage's foot.

He comforted himself with the idea of Irving falling on that pompous ass of his, and closed his eyes. Fiann woke briefly and yawned. She wriggled so that her head was tucked under his chin. Sleep, said her tiny sigh. Sleep. She would watch.

Cullen fell asleep, and did not dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the guessing about what's going on in the Tower commence. :)
> 
> Some of you may be on to me at this point. There are a couple more crucial clues that have yet to be uncovered, but the general outline of what's happening is in here. And no, everything's not going to be all angstbunnies much longer; the explosions are soon to commence. Or dismemberments. (Ritual dismemberments are on Tuesdays, yes?)
> 
> The Tower garden/greenhouse is borrowed, with many thanks, from callalili. We'll see more of it in the next story, and learn why it's fallen into decay.


	5. The Languages of Battle

_Kathil:_

Lorn was sniffing around the wreckage of an elevated garden box. Here, it was standing right here, and I _bit_ it and it went away. He looked up at her, tail wagging hard.

"_Good_ dog," she said, smiling. She used her shoe to push a mound of dirt to the side, looking for what, she was not sure. "What were you doing in here, anyway?"

The wardog's ears drooped. There's dirt. To dig in. He looked up at her, his brown eyes soulful and melting. I wanted to find something good for the puppy. Maybe a stick? He wagged tentatively. Sticks are nice.

"It is not as if anyone would care, it seems," Zevran said. He was looking at an entire row of dead plants. The dry leaves rustled as he poked them. "I thought that this was one of the Tower's important research projects."

"It was. I suppose everyone who cared is gone, or dead." She swept another pile of dirt aside, and uncovered something glinting in the dirt. "The Tranquil maintain the herbarium, but the mages take care of the living plants. It looks like the mechanisms that water the plants have broken down." She bent to pick up the object, a glass bead. It was a cheery bright yellow, a little bit of sunshine pooled in her palm. She dusted it off on the skirt of her robes; she'd hastily pulled them back on after Lorn had burst in on her and Zevran. Carroll had probably gotten a bit of an eyeful. She'd told the Templar in no uncertain terms that he was to stay _outside_ of the greenhouse. _I will yell if I need you,_ she'd told him. _But Lorn is a Grey Warden Mabari, and this is Grey Warden business._

Fortunately, that excuse was not yet wearing thin. Carroll had likely been just as happy to stay outside. He didn't _dislike_ her, as such, but he also wasn't particularly eager to spend more time in her presence than he absolutely had to. "This is odd," she said, holding up the bead. "I wonder if someone was experimenting with different ways of marking the plants."

Lorn sniffed the bead. I found that! When I bit the demon! His ears were pricked, and he tilted his head. It was in my mouth.

"Wait. This was on the demon?" she asked, abruptly suspicious. Zevran had the _oddest_ look on his face. Hadn't the vision of Sati been wearing a necklace made of beads much like this? "Lorn...what did the demon look like?"

Human. He whined a little, dropping his head and scratching. One huge paw uncovered stone beneath the mounded soil, and his claws scraped against the floor. Old human. Before you.

"Your former human," Kathil said. "Andraste's little _apples_. You see your former human. I had a visit from Sati. What about you, Zev? Any visits from the dead?"

The assassin had pulled something out of his pocket, and was looking at it contemplatively. He held the object up to the light. A blue glass bead. "Rinna," he said, his voice soft and his accent muted. "I thought it was...merely a trick of the light, so to speak."

Kathil chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "We've all had any number of people die on us. Why would those people in particular return? If it had just been Sati, I would say that there is probably a demon in the Fade who learned her name and form when she failed her Harrowing. But from everything you've said about Rinna, Zev, she was no mage. And Lorn's former human was a soldier of some sort."

"Attachment," Zevran said. He tucked his bead back into his pocket. "The faces and forms and manners of those who we were once...important to us."

She rolled the bright bead around on her palm, watching it bump over the scars that crisscrossed her hand. "You know, I should have told you. I was _intending_ to tell you, really. But, when I got back to our room, I just...wanted to keep quiet about it. Like it was somehow _shameful_ that I'd seen and talked to Sati's ghost. My first instinct was to keep it a secret."

"As was mine," he said. He shook his head. "If you and I had the same instinct—how many others in the Tower have had a spirit speak to them?"

Apprentices creeping along in twos and threes, their heads bowed and their shoulders rounded in fear. Irving stubborn as stone. Petra leaving—_fleeing_—the Tower with as many mages as she could convince to go with her. The strange silences of the Templars, the almost frantic welcome of the Mabari into their ranks, as if they thought the dogs could guard their wakings and dreamings.

Missing mages. Missing apprentices. Mages dying in the Harrowing Chamber the moment they touched lyrium.

_The Tower is bleeding,_ Jowan had said.

She glanced at Zevran, then gave the door a silent warning look. He nodded, tucked the bead back into his pocket, and came over to her. They slipped into each other's embrace, fitting together without thought. She put her chin on his shoulder. "This has to be demon work," she muttered. "Though I can't say it's any kind of demon I've ever heard of. Whatever it is, it has infiltrated this Tower well, and wastes no time starting to work on new people."

"Have you spoken to your maleficar recently?" Zevran asked, keeping his voice low. "If I recall correctly, he too has a past that this thing may use against him."

She felt cold sweeping over her, the back of her neck prickling. "Lily. Maker's _Balls_. Jowan is due to check in tonight. If he doesn't show, we're going to have to go looking. Right now, though, we need more information about what's going on. Greagoir can tell me more." She took a deep break and then let it out, closing her eyes. "We have to be very careful. After Uldred, I'm afraid that if Greagoir gets wind that the Tower may be compromised, he may call for the Right of Annulment."

Zevran made a considering noise in the back of his throat. "You did mention that the Tower may have to die in order to change."

"Not like _this_." Kathil fisted her hand in his shirt. "Not with the mages slaughtered wholesale by Templar blades. The Right instructs the Templars to kill every mage in the Tower—and that includes the apprentices."

"He likely suspects, yes? And he turns his attention away. I think he is as eager to invoke the Annulment as the mages are to die," he said. "If this is the work of demons, it is far more subtle than the usual run of them."

"It is, and that worries me." Lorn nudged her hip, and she freed one arm so she could scratch him behind his ears. "And it tried to affect Lorn. What kind of demon would consider a Mabari worthwhile prey?"

"One that knows their intelligence," Zevran said. "And one that does not have an appreciation for the mindset of the wardogs—or their very sharp noses."

Lorn gave a gentle huff, agreeing. It smelled wrong. Like the big room at the top of the stairs.

"The Harrowing Chamber." She bit back an oath. "Sometimes, I think all the problems of the Circle begin in that Maker-forgotten room. Let's go see if we can find the Templars at practice. There is one in _particular_ that I need to have a little chat with. Possibly involving his head and the floor."

"Ah, the one who called you—"

"A freak? Yes." She felt a little smile curve her lips, and she let Zevran go. "Someone needs to learn a lesson about watching their mouth around mages."

He chuckled. "I believe I will tag along. This promises to be amusing."

They collected Carroll and went back to their room, where Kathil changed into something she could fight in, and headed up to the floor that held the Templar facilities. There was indeed sparring going on at this hour. "Er, can I help you, Grey Warden?" a young knight who was waiting his turn near the door of the salle asked.

"I'm looking for someone to spar against," she said, and lifted the sheathed sword she was carrying. She had elected to bring her plain practice blade, not Spellweaver. "Want to volunteer?"

The Templar looked at the sword, confusion flitting over his face. "Spar? But...you're a _mage_. Mages don't—"

"Use swords, yes. Believe me when I say I have heard that before." She narrowed her eyes at the young man, just slightly. "I am a Grey Warden. I do know how to use a blade." And how to wear armor, and how to plan tactics for a battle, and how to both give and take orders. How to gather up the will to keep moving and fighting when she was so tired that her sword and armor were impossibly heavy.

How to clean blood from all of the very many crevices of armor.

Heads were beginning to turn her direction, matches slowing and stopping as sparring partners caught a glimpse of her. Maker, they were all so _young_. There had to be thirty Templars in here, and with a few exceptions they all looked to be under twenty years old. They put her in mind of Alistair when she'd first met him, all broad shoulders and boundless energy and unquestioning enthusiasm. She'd been a bit surprised when she'd first found out that Alistair was her age—he'd seemed so much more knowledgeable about being a Grey Warden than she could ever be. Her first indication that he might not be as much of an adult as he seemed had come after Ostagar, when he had shoved her into the role of leader because he couldn't bear to take it himself. (Later, she had been _entirely_ unsurprised that with that youth came a certain amount of...inexperience. In any _number_ of things.)

She only had five years or so on most of the Templars, but it felt like approximately a century.

And _there_ was the Templar she was looking for. Sword belted on the right, dents in his breastplate, definitely the one who had muttered at her when she'd first arrived. She caught his eye; too late, he tried to turn away. "Ah! Ser...what _is_ your name, anyway?"

"Mathias," he said. Unhelmeted, he turned out to be a young man with dark hair and an uneasy smile. He looked vaguely familiar. For some reason, he reminded her a bit of Ser Cauthrien.

She smiled. "Well, Mathias. Shall we spar?" His brows drew together and he opened his mouth to protest. "No magic, no tricks, just steel."

The Templar gave her an evaluating look. He knew what he saw—she was small, scarred, dressed in shabby practice clothes. Her shirt covered her ruined shoulder, but the scar on her face was impossible to hide. _This is the Hero of Ferelden?_ she could almost hear him think. _She doesn't look like much._

"Fine," he said. "The middle ring."

The rest of the Templars shuffled back, moving to sit down on the benches against the walls. The sale was a large hall, the centerpiece of the Templar floor, and there were three circles painted on the floor. The middle one was the largest, meant for two on one and three on one sparring. She stepped into the circle, glancing at Zevran. The elf was leaning against the doorframe, seemingly perfectly at ease, a small smile on his face. The only detail that contradicted his pose of relaxation was one thumb running restlessly over the hilt of his longer sword. Lorn lay at his feet, watching.

"You might want to get rid of some of the armor," she said. "Paldrons and gloves, at least."

"I'll keep my armor, thank you very much." Mathias set himself at one of the marks and drew his blade. "Are you ready, Warden?"

She pulled her own blade and tossed the scabbard to the edge of the ring. "Let's do this, Templar."

They circled each other, slowly. Mathias had solid footwork and moved well; Templars didn't get invited to the Tower unless they were good at the basics. She fell into a countering rhythm. In a real fight, this sizing up of one's opponents took a heartbeat, but this was as much a performance as it was a fight, and circling was always good for raising tension.

Kathil feinted to the side; Mathias caught the feint and moved to counter. She grinned and ducked. She forgot the watching Templars, narrowing her focus. The only thing in the world right now was her opponent and his blade.

It was a good fight. Mathias was more than capable with his sword and had height and strength on her, but he lacked true experience. Kathil was faster and a veteran of too many battles to count—and she had trained endlessly against Alistair and Sten. She would have usually counted stamina on her side as well, but after the first five or so clashes she found herself beginning to tire a bit. She began to push herself and her opponent, moving more quickly. The armor Mathias wore—the paldrons especially—limited his flexibility.

And _she_ had been taking fighting lessons from Zevran for quite some time now.

Kathil slid past the Templar's sword and aimed a blow at where breastplate and paldron overlapped. Her sword glanced away, and he backhanded her with his right arm, catching her across the upper part of her chest.

Had that been a shield blow, she would have gone flying off of her feet. Instead, she staggered backward, dropping her guard for a moment. Mathias followed through, bringing his sword around for a blow that would have laid her open from stem to stern, had she been stupid enough to stand there for it.

She had not survived this long by being stupid in battle, though.

Her balance was not nearly as compromised as she'd pretended, and as the Templar rounded on her, she shifted her weight forward and scampered past him, bent nearly double and presenting a very small target. Mathias was slow to react to her change in position, coming around only with difficulty, and for one heartbeat she was behind him, and he was off-balance.

Kathil planted one booted foot on the Templar's posterior and shoved. He yelped and stumbled, footwork failing him, and she followed her kick with a pommel blow to the back of Mathias's head. Just a love-tap, really, but it laid him out right enough. He went down face-first with a groan. She shifted her grip on her sword and put the tip on the back of the Templar's neck, right below the base of his skull where his dark hair was wringing wet with sweat.

"Thanks for the match," she said. "Best two out of three?"

Someone cleared their throat behind her. "Or perhaps you could try your skill against someone with more experience, Warden." That was Greagoir's tenor voice, and she became aware that all of the Templars in the room were on their feet.

She removed her blade from the back of Mathias's neck, and turned, wiping sweat off of her face with one hand. Greagoir was at the edge of the circle. She'd expected him to be scowling, but instead he was regarding her with an evaluating look. "I'm up for it if you are," she said. She turned back to Mathias, holding a hand out to him. He was struggling to his feet, and looked at her hand for a moment as if it were something disgusting. Then he appeared to remember that they were in front of an audience of both his peers and his commander, and forced himself to take her hand.

She pulled him to his feet with a clatter and scrape of metal. "Remember today the next time you decide to call a mage names," she said, pitching her voice low. Then she let him go and stepped back to one of the starting marks. Mathias walked away; she didn't bother to see if he left the salle entirely. Instead, she turned her attention to Greagoir.

There was very little time for her to catch her breath. Fatigue was tugging at her, demanding attention. She ignored it.

Greagoir was a far more dangerous opponent than Mathias could ever hope to be. The Knight Commander moved with an economy of motion that spoke of long experience in both the ring and real combat. He walked and fought in armor and robe like he'd been born to them. For all Kathil knew, he had been. _You speak his language,_ she remembered Zevran saying.

_I certainly hope so._ She was taking a risk. If the Knight Commander were not the man she thought he was…

Focus on the match. Ignore doubts and fatigue. Ignore the fact that this man had appeared prominently in most of her nightmares until the day she had completed the Joining and Greagoir had been replaced by the Archdemon.

Ignore the silent audience, the young men with one question on their minds: was it possible for the Knight Commander to be beaten by a mage?

_We'll see._

Greagoir took one of the marks and faced her. For a moment, both of them watched one another. The Knight Commander nodded slightly.

Then they were both in motion.

They skipped the tense circling, the theatrical evaluation of one another. Greagoir came right for her, and she slid away, impressed. The man was sixty if he was a day, and he was probably the fastest Templar in the Tower. Strength, reach, and speed—he was one of the most balanced fighters she had ever been up against.

And this was a problem.

She was already tired, and getting slower by the heartbeat. She dodged his blade, brought her own around, then sidestepped out of the way of his backswing, off-balance. Had she been able to use her magic, even to get a spell or two off before he hit her with the cleansing, she could have closed the gap between them. She refrained.

Greagoir came at her again, and instead of stepping to the side she dropped low and swept one leg out, trying to snag his ankle. Unfortunately, with the robe he wore the exact location of his foot was an educated guess at best, and she got it wrong. She finished the sweep without getting him, and he'd already turned. Kathil was on one knee with no way of getting back to her feet, and resorted to the inelegant solution of flinging herself to one side in an attempt to put space between them.

It worked, barely; she was back on her feet before Greagoir set himself for another attack. They went back and forth for long minutes. Sweat was dripping down her forearms, making her sword hilt slippery. He was wearing her down, slowly but surely.

But if she was slowing down, so was he. They were both getting a little sloppy, letting holes open in their guards. In the end, one of those holes was Kathil's undoing. She'd just pressed an attack, thinking to take advantage of a momentary opening on Greagoir's left side, and instead of pulling away he stepped into her swing.

Kathil realized her mistake a moment too late to do anything about it. Greagoir had one hand around her wrist, and twisted her arm up behind her back, forcing her to her knees. She felt the cold bite of his sword at her throat. She dropped her sword, listening to it clatter in the silence of the salle, all of the observers evidently holding their breath.

_Is this the day I die, Greagoir?_

She could almost feel Zevran's cold estimation of what it would take to kill the Knight Commander; she _did_ hear Lorn's low, threatening growl. "I yield," she said.

A heartbeat passed.

Greagoir removed his blade from her throat and let go of her. She rose to her feet; Lorn, evidently having gotten tired of restraining himself, launched himself at her. She found herself staggering under a double armful of extremely worried warhound. Lorn's paws were on her shoulders and he was snuffling at her neck and face, evidently trying to determine whether she was hurt. "I'm _fine_," she told him. "I've sparred before, you know."

Lorn made a whuffing noise and licked her chin, then dropped to all fours, evidently satisfied that she was whole. Greagoir was still standing there, and she cocked her head at him. "It's been a while since I've had a workout like that," she said. "Thank you. It was an honor."

One corner of the Knight Commander's mouth twitched. "Likewise, Grey Warden." Then he turned towards the onlookers and frowned. "Templars."

Almost as one, the young men watching them started and looked around, and there was a great confusion of movement as all of them decided that they needed to be elsewhere, right _now_.

In the noise, Kathil almost missed Greagoir's next words. "My door is open," he said. She blinked, then acknowledged his words with a shallow nod. Evidently satisfied, he walked away, raising his voice to ask why _exactly_ some of the Templars had abandoned their posts.

She walked over to Zevran, Lorn nearly attached to her hip. On the way, she scooped up the scabbard of her practice blade and sheathed it. "Interesting," she said, and took Zevran's hand. He pulled her close to him, and she hooked one leg around his, ignoring the stares of the knights who passed them. "By the Maker, that is a sparring match I don't want to repeat any time soon. You were right, though. I think he'll talk to me now."

"And I am glad that he decided not to kill you," Zevran said. "Killing him and getting out alive would be _most_ inconvenient, no? It is getting a bit late in the season to swim the lake."

Kathil put her forehead against his. "If you try it, make sure you get the drop on him." She smiled, and kept her voice low. "He's very, very good."

"I did notice. Had he been any other man, he might have killed you."

"I'm sure he considered it. If briefly." Lorn nudged her hip insistently. "All right, Lorn, you're right, it's almost supper time. I should change, and go see if Cullen is awake."

Zevran tightened his arms around her. They were alone in the salle but for Lorn, now. "I was going to suggest that we go to the Spoiled Princess tonight, but alas. Circumstances demand that you be here, my Grey Warden. But perhaps tomorrow?"

_Circumstances_ meaning Jowan. "Tomorrow," she said. "It would probably be…prudent to spend some time out of the Tower."

Time to remind herself—both of them—that there was more to this life than stone walls, hundreds of stairs, and worry. Even if the Tower were not demon-haunted, even if the visitations from the dead were something in the way of a delusion caused by sleepless nights, it would be a good idea.

So she took Zevran's hand, and went down the stairs, Lorn at her heels.

*****

_Cullen:_

Awake. Again.

But not alone.

He squinted at the figure who was sitting at the foot of the bed he lay in. The infirmary was quiet; the high, narrow windows admitted golden late afternoon light. He could hear voices, muffled by distance and walls. The figure was female. Familiar. Mage. Her back was to him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. He tried to growl the words, but it came out all wrong. The world was a little wavery around the edges, and there were shadows crowded around the windows as if hungry to touch the light. The place at his side where Fiann usually slept was empty.

"Checking on you," Kathil said. She turned a little towards him, showing the unscarred side of her face. "Do you need anything?"

Cullen laid back on the pillow, fixing his eyes on the high ceiling. "Why are you keeping up this…pretense, mage?"

He heard her take a quiet breath, a little pain in the sound. "Believe it or not, Cullen, you are still my friend, and my Templar. I—care about you. Probably more than I ought. That doesn't change."

"Do you? Seems to me that you've been manipulating me for your own ends." He was staring upward still, refusing to look at her. "Getting me sent away from the Tower, backing me into a corner in Waking Sea, _seducing_ me—"

"Saving your _sodding_ life, Cullen. Multiple times." He heard the frustration in her voice, and felt an odd twist and tug in his heart. "Seducing you, well, I admit to that. I've never made any secret of who and what I am."

"No. You haven't." And why had he gone along with it? He _knew_ that mages were tools of demons, abominations waiting to happen. His memories of the last year were strangely muddled. The parts that he'd experienced at the time were perfectly clear, but there was something like a river of blood running beneath them, pulsing. Demons caressing his face and laughing. Dead bodies rotting like so much meat. Kathil admitting that she had used blood magic to save her life and Alistair's.

The relief as she'd said _Cullen is my Templar._

A cat having kittens in a niche high in a wall, safe only as long as the kittens did not move, did not explore.

_She probably thinks of it as a safe place, no matter how dangerous it might become later._

Cullen heard Kathil rise, felt the mattress shift as her weight was removed. "I'll go. You're obviously in no mood for this conversation. Fiann's downstairs having some supper. She should be back up soon."

It was a strange kind of pain, to listen to her walk away and know that something was ending between them, something that should probably never have happened in the first place. He should be proud of himself for resisting the temptation that she represented.

If this was victory, it didn't feel like it in the slightest.

The bright place that he had been retreating to was becoming harder to reach, leaving him with only bitter reality and the knowledge that he had spent the last year making decisions that might at best be called questionable. The hardest part was that the Cullen who had made those decisions was trapped within him, insisting that she was walking away and he had to _do something_ about it before there was no fixing things at all.

He ignored that Cullen, and watched the shadows at the edges of the windows yearning hungrily towards the light that would destroy them if they dared to touch it.

*****

_Jowan:_

He did not look behind him as he scampered down the hallway, heading towards the room they had given Kathil and Zevran. He didn't want to know if Lily was following him. He didn't hear anything, but then he never heard either her arrivals or her departures.

He could smell so much in this form, scents that his mouse-brain understood instinctively but that the human intelligence that overlaid it had a much harder time with. Humans and elves, magic like an icy spike through his head, dogs and stale sweat trapped in armor padding. Food—he was going to have to go raid the kitchen again tonight, and hope that the big Mabari who had taken up seemingly permanent residence there didn't decide that this was the night he was going to stir himself to bite some vermin.

Being a mouse was convenient, but it was also not the most _safe_ form in the world.

He slipped past the robes of a Templar who stood outside of Kathil's room, and squeezed under the door. The room was shadowed, but in the light of a lamp he saw a large form move that his human mind identified as Kathil. He ran to the alcove at the back of the room that was formed by a bookcase and the curve of the wall, and with some relief let go of his mouse form.

Kathil poked her head around the bookcase. "Oh, good, that _was_ you." Even in the dim light back here, he could see a deep line between her brows. "Zevran's only going to be gone for a few minutes. Have you found anything?"

"I have a partial solution," Jowan told her. "It might be a complete solution if you think you can get the cooperation of one of the Tranquil. I've worked out a way to strengthen your body's natural barriers against the taint, but it's got a very short duration. It needs a physical anchor, or else I'm going to end up casting it on you every four hours for the next eight months."

She took a sharp breath inward. "Not ideal. Getting Tranquil help isn't a problem, but should, say, Irving or Greagoir ask whoever helps me what I wanted...that is one."

"You're running out of time," he said. "If I had another month to study and the ability to set up experiments, I could probably come up with something better. As it is—"

"I know, I know." She shook her head sharply. "Get me instructions, Jowan, I'll get it done."

He pulled a rolled piece of parchment out of his pocket and handed it over to her. "Everything you need is in there. You'll need something for the Tranquil to lay runes into, but that shouldn't be difficult to come by. It only extends the time between castings. I'll still have to cast the spell on you every other day."

Kathil grimaced. "I thought it might be something like that." She stopped and cocked her head. The sound of boots ringing on stone reached Jowan's ears, with an echo beneath it that might be another pair of feet moving, much more quietly. "And that's Zev coming back."

A moment later, the door opened. Kathil beckoned the elf over to the niche once the door was closed behind him. Zevran leaned against the wall, regarding Jowan with a look he could never read; perhaps a little bit less than neutral, but making a game attempt at no reaction to him at all.

"I think we've found out part of the problem here," Kathil said. "Zevran, Lorn, and I all had a…visitation, I suppose, from the dead. In my case, it was Sati. Have you have something like that happen, Jowan?"

Lily, crouched, her fingers scrabbling against the stone. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "I have."

"Demon work, Lorn says, and I am inclined to believe him when he says things smell like demons," Zevran said. Jowan wondered who among the dead the assassin had seen. Surely there had to be hundreds to choose from. "But what sort of demon is in question, no?"

"Nothing I've seen before," Kathil said. "I'm hoping to pry some information out of Greagoir tomorrow. Irving hasn't been forthcoming."

Jowan eyed Kathil cautiously. She was fretting at the Warden's Oath hung around her neck with her fingers. "Why would Greagoir talk to you, if Irving won't?"

She twitched the twisted corner of her mouth; the motion made her scar pull at her eye. "Because I faced the Knight Commander in a sparring match today."

"You _what_?"

"I lost, of course. The man is a monster on the field." She leaned back against the bookcase and crossed her arms. "And I wasn't using magic, so I was at a disadvantage. But I think I earned a measure of respect, for having balls if nothing else. I don't know how much he'll tell me, but we're missing some crucial details. Like why we have at least five fewer mages here than we ought to have, and why some of the younger apprentices have died. I hope Greagoir will enlighten me, or at least hint which direction I should be looking."

Well. He supposed a certain amount of audacity was a necessary quality in a Grey Warden. "You're keeping it quiet until you know more about what's going on," he said. "Greagoir's going to suspect, you know."

"He can suspect all he likes as long as he doesn't call for the Right of Annulment," Kathil said. "The Circle is necessary, and even as weakened as it is it's better to keep it going than try to rebuild from scratch. We'd have to bring in mages from Orlais or Antiva to get a new Circle started, and they'll probably bring loyalties to their homelands with them."

"The Antivan Circle of Magi in particular is very...patriotic," Zevran added. "It is even rumored that they own a few Crow cells of their own. Not that anyone truly cares to confirm the truth of that, but they _do_ meddle in politics. Often to the detriment of those meddled with."

"I'll take the demon we know," Kathil said, and grimaced.

Jowan wondered if Zevran suspected why her mouth was drawn with fatigue. The elf was favoring him with a slightly suspicious look. _Probably not._ "I should go. I'll see if I can do some research on the types of demons that aren't seen often."

"Give us a couple of days to find out more." Kathil glanced at the door. "Be careful on your way out. Lorn's having playtime with the rest of the Mabari, and he could be back at any moment. He _probably_ wouldn't bite you, but best if we don't risk it."

He nodded and spoke the quiet words that took him into his mouse form. A moment later he was squeezing back under the door, pausing to take stock of the hallway—thankfully empty of everyone but the two Templars on the door—and then running down the hall, along the curving wall.

Later, in his stolen space between the walls, Lily appeared once more. "You're not real," he told her. "You're a demon." He rolled one of the silvery grey beads he kept finding in his blankets between his fingers. "Go away."

Lily splayed her fingers against the wall, and leaned her head on her hand. She regarded him, her auburn hair falling on her bruised cheek, lips moving soundlessly. "No," she whispered, finally. "Even this is better than the darkness."

Jowan stared at her, his heart feeling as though it would tear itself in two. _She lies,_ he tried to tell himself. _Demons lie. It's what they do. It's who they are._

But he was not convinced. He clenched his hand around the bead he held, trying not to think about the darkness at the end of all things, trying to believe that there was nothing of Lily here.

Trying, and failing.

_Even this is better than the darkness._


	6. Worth a Thousand Lies

_Lorn:_

He and his human have been walking around his territory all morning. He does not really know what she is up to, but she is clearly up to _something_. She keeps talking to the empty ones, the mages-who-were, asking them each a little favor. From the empty one who guards the storeroom that smells of sulfur and flame she asks for something called a _rune blank_, from the one of those who put books back in the library she asks for some ink and some vellum. From one who works in the other storeroom, the ones the knights keep all their metal things in, she asks for a little pinch of lyrium. That one is stubborn.

His human is clever, though, and talks the empty one into giving her what she needs. Then she goes to yet another empty one and asks her to do another small favor, to fold lyrium into a design she has drawn onto the vellum. There are many mages-who-were in this territory. They are there but unseen, ignored, like mice.

Now they are in the library, his human with her new amulet tucked into her pocket, sitting across from an alcove in which some mage pups are being taught a lesson. They are afraid, the mage pups are. Each one of them smells like sour fear and shivers to rattle the teeth. But they are stubborn, each of them, and they are trying to learn to make and control fire.

Lorn's human is sitting cross-legged on the floor, and she has a book open on her lap. He lies next to her, guarding; the knight guards her is nearby, but distracted. Lorn misses the days when it was his human's dust-knight who would guard her. This new knight doesn't save _any_ of his dinners for Lorn. "Desire, pride, rage..." his human mutters, turning a page. "I _know_ all those. Give me something I _don't_ know. Acedia? Oh, that's sloth." She turns some more pages, and Lorn cocks an ear to her. "Vainglory? Isn't that a kind of pride?"

He ruminatively licks a paw, nibbling between the pads. The mage-pups' lesson seems to be ending, all of the pups are getting up off the benches and filing towards the door. One of them approaches his human. "Grey Warden? Can I pet Lorn?"

The pup's voice is thin, but he is being brave. Lorn approves, and lifts his head to grin at the pup, wagging his tail. "Looks like he thinks it's a good idea, Connor. You may," his human says.

He drops down next to Lorn and begins to scratch behind his ears. Then he puts his arms around Lorn's neck and hugs him. The pup's scent is sharp, like green growing things, laced through with the unmistakable smell of magic. And a little, just a _little_, like—

Demon.

He turns his head, trying to better locate the smell. It seems to be coming from the pup's wrist, and from the ornament tied there. Lorn knows about ornaments; they're like kaddis, they identify and protect. But this ornament seems to be made of the same little round things he found when he bit the demon who looked like his old human. He nudges the ornament, and whuffs quietly. Something here. Something bad.

His human looks up from her book, sees the pup snatching his wrist away from Lorn and tugging his too-short sleeve down to cover the ornament. "What's that, Connor?" she asks, quietly. "It's pretty."

"Nothing." The lie is transparent. "I—I should go."

Lorn knows evasion when he sees it, and he is in motion. His jaws are around the pup's arm. Gently; humans are terribly fragile, their skin soft. "It's all right," his human says. Her voice has a note in it Lorn rarely hears, something yielding, reassuring. She glances at the Templar, who is looking the other direction. "I promise, whatever it is, you can tell me."

The pup stares at Lorn's human, his eyes wide and round, and then shakes himself and sits down as Lorn lets go of him. He leans against Lorn and folds his legs up underneath himself. Lorn shifts and curls around the pup; this is what you do with young ones who are scared. The pup is afraid, but he is brave, and something in him longs to ask for help. "It's the Lady," the pup says. "It's her gift."

"The Lady? What Lady?" his human asks. She closes her book. Were she a Mabari, she would have her ears flattened and her eyebrows working; as it is, she holds her mouth in the way humans show concern.

"The White Lady. She comes to us when we're alone. She helps us, sometimes." The pup is speaking into Lorn's fur. "Sometimes she comes to you on her own, but most times you have to call her. You sit with a candle or a magelight in front of a mirror, and say a rhyme. Then she comes and talks to you, and you're not alone for a little while. She wears a really pretty dress, and she has long hair. But she's sad. She carries all the sadness of the world."

"And the beads?"

"She always gives us a bead before she goes." The pup looks up at Lorn's human. "We wear them because sometimes you can touch them and you won't feel so sad and scared any more. The Lady takes away all of the sadness. And after you've called her enough times, she'll let you buy a wish from her."

His human shifts, and her scent is turning to ice and dust. "What kind of wish?"

"Anything you want, but you have to want it a lot." The pup is curling into a ball; Lorn snuffles at the back of his neck. "Ife wished for Ser Rolande to die, and two days later he fell down the stairs and broke his neck."

She takes a sharp breath. "Ife is...gone."

"She's dead." The pup's voice is matter of fact. "That's how you buy the wish. You let the White Lady drink your life. Ser Rolande...he messed with Ife. Touched her. She wanted him to die before he could do that to anyone else."

Somehow, his human remains still, though from the smell of it she is nearly _made_ of dust and stricken sorrow. "Has anyone else bought a wish?"

"A few. The only one I know for sure what he wished for was Galen." He puts his head down on Lorn's back. Lorn is keeping an eye on the knight, who appears to be not hearing a thing. "He wished that someone would see that something is wrong and _help_. That we wouldn't be alone any more. That someone could help keep us safe. They took Galen out of the Tower a few days before you arrived. Is that you, Grey Warden? Are you here to help us?"

She is silent for a moment. Lorn licks the pup's cheek, tastes salty tears; his eyes are leaking. All pups need a pack to teach them how to behave and to protect them. This territory has a pack, but it is fractured and broken, and no one is taking care of the mage-pups. How will they grow up strong like his human, if nobody shows them how?

"I think I am, Connor," his human says, and she is dust, dust, dust. "If you can, could you tell the others that before they buy a wish, they should come see me? This isn't how the Tower is supposed to work."

"I will," the mage-pup says, and there is something hopeful in his voice. "I'll tell them that the Grey Wardens are here to help us, that Galen's wish worked." He scrambles to his feet. "I'll go find them now." A moment later, he runs past the knight and vanishes around the corner.

Lorn's human bends forward, putting her forehead against his back. She is trembling, and he nudges her, trying to give comfort. The mage-pup chose right, telling us. We can help.

"I hope so," his human mutters. "Maker's Breath, Lorn. I knew things were bad. I didn't have any idea _how_ bad. Whatever this...thing is, it's got its claws into everyone." She straightens, and picks up her book. Lorn sniffs the corner, wondering if he can have a nibble of the delicious-smelling old paper before they go. "No, Lorn. Time to go see the Knight-Commander. Let's see if we can get him to fill in a few holes for us."

She gets up, and Lorn does as well. Another smell is taking over the sorrowing dust; determination in her is a banked flame, a hot clenched-fist sort of smell. He likes that smell. It usually means something _very_ interesting is about to happen. There isn't anything to bite, yet, but there soon might be. He will have to fetch Fiann later and explain to her about that scent.

For right now, though, he trots beside his human as she heads for the stairs. The knight who watches follows behind at a distance. _Definitely_ not as good as the dust-knight; if this were his human's _real_ knight, he would be at her shoulder, and they would be talking and planning how to make interesting things happen. He gives their follower a disdainful look over his shoulder, and kicks one back foot at him.

"Leave Carroll be," his human says. "It's not his fault he's not Cullen." She scratches him behind the ears briefly, and then they are taking the stairs two at a time, heading up to the alpha knight's little room full of paper.

*****

_Kathil:_

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. There was Greagoir's door, and it wouldn't do to burst in on him, sorrowing and rageful. _The apprentices give their lives to secure a little justice and a little safety, and nobody _notices_? Life in the Tower is hard, but we're all supposed to have each other._ The story of the White Lady was as old as the Tower, but that's all it ever had been—a story the apprentices told each other, a piece of shared mythology. And Kathil had _never_ heard a version in which the Lady would trade a life for a wish.

She stopped in front of Greagoir's door and forced her emotions beneath the surface of her self. There would be time to rage later. Right now, she had to be calm. The Templars did not favor mages having hysterics.

"Please wait out here, Carroll," she said to the Templar who had followed her up here. "I may be a while." Carroll nodded silently. If he was having any doubts about why she might be going to Greagoir's office, he kept them to himself.

She knocked on the door, received a gruff, "Come in," in return. Greagoir was sitting behind a desk in an office that was not much larger than a broom closet; it held shelves and shelves of scrolls, a small cabinet with a lock, and one chair on either side of the desk. The Knight Commander wiped his pen on a cloth and returned it to its plain stand. "Warden. I wondered when you might arrive."

Kathil closed the door behind herself and Lorn. The warhound lay down next to the empty chair, as was his habit; she gingerly sat down. "I'd hoped that you might be able to speak to me about a few things," she said. "Tower matters. The Circle might not be the _official_ concern of the Grey Wardens, but what threatens the Circle threatens the whole of Ferelden, and that is our business. And I'd like to know more about what might have prompted the recent exodus of mages and Templars to the Wardens."

Greagoir folded his hands. "Irving wouldn't talk to you?"

"No." _And please don't tell me you're trying to maintain a united front._ "He seems to believe that I have no business these days poking my nose into the affairs of the Tower. I think he is taking my decision to go to Amaranthine personally."

"You are correct," Greagoir said. "The First Enchanter was looking forward to his retirement. I don't know how much I can tell you, Warden, but ask your questions."

Kathil took a long breath. That Greagoir was addressing her as _Warden_ was a good sign, she hoped. "I need to know what's been happening to the mages and apprentices who are...disappearing."

Greagoir's expression shuttered, almost audibly closing off. For a moment, she thought he was going to jump to his feet and begin shouting. Instead, he closed his eyes, and Kathil realized that the Knight Commander looked _old_. She had been around this man most of her life, and while Irving had started out as a man of middle years and had progressed to the old man she knew today, Greagoir had always been eternal as the walls of the Tower, apparently unchanging. But now there was a darkness under his eyes and deep lines at the corners of his eyes that she didn't remember.

"That is a touchy subject, yes. We have not been talking about it, in an attempt to keep it from becoming an epidemic, but it does not seem to be working." He shook his head and looked at her. "There has been a rash of suicides. Seven mages, four apprentices, and two Templars have died in the last half year. One of the Templars—Nilidh, I don't know if you remember him—drowned himself in the lake. He was the one to find two of the apprentices dead. The other Templar's death was accidental, I believe."

She remembered Connor's words. "Ser Rolande," she said.

One of his eyebrows went up. "I didn't know that you knew him."

"I didn't. It's a long story. So. Rash of suicides. Why?"

"The annals of the Tower Commanders note several...outbreaks over the last few hundred years," Greagoir said. "The theory is that in such a tightly knit community as the Tower, certain rash acts are somehow contagious. Usually, though, we see suicides in older apprentices and newly-made mages. Some fear the Harrowing and the Rite of Tranquility equally and seek a way out of both. For some who pass the Harrowing, the trial turns out to be too much for them. This is different. The mages were all at least a decade from their Harrowings. The oldest apprentice was eleven. The youngest was eight."

She thought of small bodies wrapped in white muslin shrouds and tried not to shudder. "Do you have any theories, at all?"

"None." He shook his head slowly. "If this keeps up, we are going to have an empty Tower before spring."

Looking at him, she thought, _he knows. He knows there's something wrong, but the only thing he can possibly do about it is something he doesn't want to do._ For the first time in her life, she felt something like sympathy for the Knight Commander. The strictures of the Templar life left little room for either mercy or creative interpretation of the duty that the Chantry imposed on all of them. "Do you think it has anything to do with Keir and Moira's Harrowings? Having both of them fail is a little unusual."

"You would have to speak with Irving about that. The process of the Harrowing is his business, not mine, other than assigning Templars to them."

_Assigning Templars._ A suspicion was nagging at the back of her mind. "How _do_ you go about assigning Templars to Harrowings, anyway? Is it a matter of who happens to be free when it takes place?"

He fixed her with a sharp look, and his expression shut down once more. She could almost see him retreating into stone. "No. It is not."

She let out a long exhale, and tipped her chair back, balancing it on two legs. Lorn looked up at her, concerned. "You never liked me, Greagoir. Why?"

"It is not my task to enjoy the company of mages, Grey Warden." He was still looking at her steadily.

_Two can play this little game, Templar._ "The thing about growing up in the Tower is that you learn to watch the Templars, and listen to them. You pretend to ignore them, pretend they're invisible, but you're looking at them out of the corner of your eye, learning to distinguish the men inside the helmets. You learn when one likes you, and another doesn't. Was it my friendship with Cullen? I'm under no illusions that it wasn't noticed."

For a moment, Kathil thought he was going to continue to stonewall her. Then he picked up a piece of paper from the desk, and set it down again. "I saw his...attachment to you. I could see that you had the potential to ruin his life."

"Like his mother ruined his father's life?" she asked, keeping her voice quiet and steady, and _praying_—

Greagoir's head jerked up, and she saw her question hit home. "You—"

"Yes. I know that Wynne was his mother." Seeing the silent question on his face, she shook her head. "No, she didn't tell me. I did some research. And he _does_ look like you, you know."

"So I've been told." Greagoir raked a hand through his hair, and in that motion he resembled Cullen so much that her heart twisted. "Does he know?"

She nodded. "Not that he's currently thinking about anything much other than the lyrium withdrawal, and I tried to give him the impression that you likely didn't know he ever existed. I…assumed that was not the case, however."

"I knew." His eyes went briefly to something below the desk—a drawer, perhaps? Then he looked back at her. "That was a very long time ago, Warden. Why bring up the dead past now?"

She tipped her chair forward and let the suspended legs hit the floor with a hollow thump. "None of us are who we were four years ago. I _know_ that you can't look too closely at what's going on, Greagoir." She held up a hand, glaring at him as he tried to protest. "Just listen. I bring up the past because it's the past that dogs us, blinds us to the present. Our first duty is to protect against the darkspawn, but this place was my home for many years, and I have a strong interest in seeing it—and the mages within it—safe. Let me do what I do best, without interference. You're right, you know. If something isn't done, the Tower will be empty of all but Tranquil before Lake Calenhad thaws in the spring."

The silence stretched out into heartbeats. Sometime later, Kathil knew that she would be aghast at her actions, but right now the horror of what Connor had told her was still driving her. "What do you need?" Greagoir asked.

"Access to the Harrowing Chamber, and if I have to have Carroll as a guard, I need him to make himself useful," Kathil said. "I get impatient these days when well-meaning people get in my way. And are you _sure_ there isn't anything you can tell me about Keir and Moira's Harrowings?"

"They were the fastest failures I've ever seen. So fast that I couldn't say for certain if they were really failures in the usual sense." The Knight Commander shook his head. "Irving refuses to discuss it with me, for reasons of his own. I get the impression, though, that what lies beyond the Harrowing Chamber is…no longer what it was. Any more, I hesitate to inquire about."

Within the strictures of faith and his duty, that hint was more like a shout. "Thank you, Greagoir," she said. "That is more helpful than you likely realize." She rose from her chair, and Lorn sat up, wagging.

The warhound looked up at her. Were they going to go make interesting things happen now?

She stifled a laugh. "Maybe," she said. "I'll take my leave."

"Send Carroll in," Greagoir said. He was sitting straighter now, and there was something of the fire she remembered in his eyes. She never thought she would be _glad_ to see devotion to duty burning in him. "And, Warden?"

She'd turned away, put her hand on the latch. She looked over her shoulder. "Yes?"

There was little emotion in his face, but his strong tenor voice revealed much. "I believe, if Cullen had to leave the Tower, finding himself under your command was likely the best thing that could have happened to him."

_Treasure this moment. It will not come again._

She gave him a half-bow. "That means more than I can say, Greagoir." Then she opened the door and stepped outside, waving Carroll within.

*****

_Zevran:_

"Oh, _sod_ it," Kathil muttered. She came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hall and bent to grab the hem of her robe. A moment later, she had tucked it into her belt, exposing quite the length of leg. "I'm not going to be any use to anyone if I trip over my robes and split my head open." She glanced back at him, and he arched an eyebrow. "I'll explain in a bit."

Carroll, next to him, had been looking slightly scandalized since Kathil had arrived in the kitchens with the Templar and Lorn in tow to collect Zevran. Now he looked like he was having difficulty figuring out where to look. _Templars and ankles. Ah, I missed the Tower._

They were going up two flights of stairs, and Kathil paused in front of what seemed to be a random door on the Senior Enchanter floor. She turned to Carroll. "You. _Stay_. We'll be back in a bit." She stepped inside the room and beckoned Lorn and Zevran forward. Bemused, both of them obeyed. Lorn kicked the door closed after them. Kathil summoned a magelight, a pale green globe flickering around her fingers.

"Now, my Grey Warden, if the look on your face is what I think it is, you have found something," Zevran said.

"Something. _Somethings._" She was fairly vibrating with some emotion—anger, impatience, sorrow? She stepped over to the back wall—the room was square, odd after days spent in this place that had no right angles—and rapped on it. "Jowan. It's us. You'd _better_ be in here."

A muffled groan came from the other side of the wall. He thought that was Jowan's voice, saying something about having been asleep and would they give him a moment? The room they were in seemed to be a storeroom for extra furniture—there were chairs neatly stacked against the wall, next to several tables. Kathil dropped down on one of the beds, and a cloud of dust rose from the straw-stuffed tick. She set the books she was carrying down next to her. "You were right about Greagoir," she said. "Once I got under his metaphorical armor, he gave me quite a bit of information. And don't give me that look, I have _less_ than zero interest in getting under his actual armor. You can, if you absolutely must."

He sat down next to her. "Have I ever told you about the time that I seduced a noblewoman and her daughter, on successive nights? Not that I realized that the fetching girl who was serving the wine was the Dama's daughter—she was in disgrace. It was not until later that I realized who she was. Of course, she did not know who I was, either. Likely for the best, since I had killed her mother the night before."

"How _did_ you find out?"

"She hunted me down a few months later, wanting revenge. I was quite pained to have to deny it." He shook his head fondly, remembering. "A pity. She had exquisite shoulders. Anyway, I have not seduced both a man and his father, before. Perhaps I should."

"And you think _I_ have a weakness for Templars, Zevran." She leaned over and kissed him. "You are a very bad man, if I haven't pointed it out recently."

A mouse squeezed out of a barely-visible hole in the base of the wall. A moment later it was Jowan, hair and clothes sleep-rumpled, yawning. "How did you even know where I was, Kathil?"

She gave the blood mage a sour look. "You forget that we found this room together and figured out about the walls. Grab a chair. I've found some things."

"So have I," he said. Jowan pulled a chair down from the stack and sat down. "You first, though."

Kathil took a deep breath, and bent a bit so she could put a hand on her warhound's head. Lorn rested his chin on her knee. Then she started talking, telling them about myths come to life, about children and mages killing themselves, about the Harrowing Chamber being compromised in some way.

The picture she painted for them in that dark room was one of quiet desperation, of silence kept for fear that when it was broken something very much worse would take its place. "This wasn't ever a _good_ place," she said. "But it was somewhere you could survive. It's not, any more."

"Especially not if what I found is true," Jowan said. "I didn't bring my books out with me, but—is that a copy of _Names and Numerations_? That should have at least a reference to what I found." Kathil handed the thick book over, and the blood mage turned to the back of the book and started paging forward. "Here. This entry. I thought it was a bit far-fetched, but I guess it's not." He gave the open book back to them.

Kathil scanned the page. "Despair demon. Maker's Breath, that _fits_. 'Appears to most as a representation of some guilt in their past, usually taking the face and form of the dead. To some, will appear as a woman or man who has lost a child. Usually possesses an area rather than a specific person. Manifestations may take months to years to fully take effect.' That's why we didn't notice it before we left."

"My book was a bit more specific," Jowan said. "It told the story of a town that was taken by a despair demon. Over the course of a year, almost everyone in the place killed themselves. It gets worse, though."

"Worse?" Zevran inquired.

"Yeah. The despair demon establishes a sort of home ground. With the deaths it causes, it thins the Veil, and…things start coming through. The account got a bit incoherent right then. Something about armies of armored seekers."

Kathil blanched, looking ill in the green light she held. "I think I know. The nightmares, whatever they are. We have to go look at the Harrowing Chamber. Jowan, come with us. Mouse form is probably prudent."

"_Prudent_, she says, like it's not death if anyone but you sees me." Jowan grumbled, but a moment later he was a mouse with rusty grey fur. He cocked his head at Kathil, and she bent down to pick him up. Instead of putting him into one of the capacious pockets of her robe, she transferred him to her shoulder. The mouse curled its paws around a lock of her hair.

His Grey Warden stood, and snapped her fingers to extinguish the light in her hand. "Funny thing, Zevran. Connor is under the impression that I was brought here by the White Lady to help protect the apprentices."

Zevran put an arm around her shoulders. He could feel a subtle tremble in her breath. She might be made of blades and ice, but certain tragedies still tore at her. "We were coming here anyway. The children of the Crows have a similar legend. It gives them just a little bit of hope in the darkness of the mews."

He did not mention that the legend persisted among the adult Crows; too many had seen a cloaked figure standing over a newly dead body. It was said that a Crow would see her three times in his life: at his first important kill, at the kill he would be remembered for, and at his last kill. Zevran had never seen her, himself. Then again, he was no longer a Crow.

He felt her steel herself, then step forward. They collected Carroll and went up the stairs. The post by the stairs to the Harrowing Chamber was empty. "Greagoir's doing," Kathil muttered. Zevran could see Carroll look at the mouse on the mage's shoulder, and then decide not to ask.

They climbed the stairs, Lorn loping ahead. The first indication that something was wrong was the warhound's puzzled whine as he stopped dead, sniffing at one of the stairs. Then he gave a low, deadly growl.

The air was taking on that strange, slick feeling of resident magic. Behind them, Carroll gasped. "Maker's _Breath_! The Veil—"

Kathil had paused, and now she turned. "What?"

"It's not just torn. It's _gone_."

She spat a curse—and where had she learned how to say _an ox copulating with a cow made of excrement_ in Rivanni, anyway?—and called Lorn back down the stairs. "The demon's established its bridgehead. This makes things—complicated. Let's get back down the stairs."

By the time they reached the empty guard post, he could see Kathil settling herself into that mental place of _leader_ that he knew well but had not seen in her for some time. "All right. Carroll, go tell Greagoir that we're going to need some more Templars. Five or six, whoever's got the strongest talent for sealing the Veil. Have them meet us here in an hour. The rest need to be available to guard everyone else and get them out if there's need. Lorn, go get the other Mabari. Warhounds seem to be immune to this thing's influence, that's going to come in handy. Zevran—" She turned to him, and he saw an all-too-familiar grim look in her dark eyes. "Get Cullen on his feet and into armor, if you can. He's got a job to do, and by Andraste I need him to _do_ it. Get armored up as well, I expect we're going to have a fight on our hands."

"And you, my Grey Warden?" he asked.

She cast a dark look down the hall. "_I_ am going to go speak to the First Enchanter. Irving has information I need—and much to answer for."

As she turned and strode down the hall, there was a certain scent of lightning in the air. Zevran thought that he would not like to be the First Enchanter right about now. But he had his own task, one that he was not looking forward to. His Grey Warden needed her Templar—the same Templar who, even when he was slightly saner than not, had apparently lost all sympathy for the mage he guarded.

_I hope you know what you are doing, mi amor. Else your threat of tearing down the Tower stone by stone may well become a necessity…_

* * *

 

_   
_

_Cover the mirror  
Hide in your dreams  
Forget what they told you  
Forget what it means  
A picture worth a thousand lies  
The memory and the mirror  
Nothing but what came before  
Nothing but a closing door_

_Bury my lovely  
Hide in your room  
Bury my lovely  
Forget me soon  
Forget me now  
(forget me not)  
—"Bury My Lovely", October Project_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The legend of the White Lady is based on the folklore of Bloody Mary/La Llorona. Despair was on some of the original lists of deadly sins, and I thought that Bloody Mary as a despair demon was a uniquely Fereldan twist on the legend.
> 
> (And yes, there are some surprises waiting in the Harrowing Chamber. There are reasons Jowan showed up in the last story, and we've only seen a couple of them so far.)
> 
> You guys get two chapters in close together because I'm going to be occupied with playing Awakening for a little while here. Oh, Bioware, you own my soul a little bit. :)
> 
> As always, reviews are much loved!


	7. Harrowed Road

_Kathil:_

It seemed to be her day for trying not to storm into people's offices.

Unlike her meeting with the Knight Commander, she was _completely_ unable to stop herself from banging the door of Irving's office open. She was holding on to her temper by only the thinnest of threads; the last time she remembered being this angry was when the Archdemon had stepped on Wynne, right before she had used Spellweaver to pin the great beast's head to the stone of Fort Drakon's roof. That day, anger had sustained her, given her the strength to do what was necessary.

Today, it was going to serve the same purpose.

Irving was behind his desk. He rose as she stormed into the room. "Kathil—"

"No," she said, making the word into a weapon. "Whatever you're about to say, _no_. You are going to listen to me, Irving, and then you are going to answer my questions. We have a situation on our hands that is not going to wait. There is a _sodding_ despair demon who's moved into the Harrowing Chamber. It's got its claws into the apprentices—they may be mages, but they're also _little kids_, if you would be so kind as to remember. They are _defenseless_. And you have been doing a _shit_ job of protecting them." She stalked forward, aware that lightning was playing over her skin. She heard the Templars on the door give muffled exclamations. Irving looked at them and raised a hand, shaking his head. "Tell me, how did Ife die? Remember her? Elf girl, about so high, big blue eyes?"

The First Enchanter paled a little. "She was found hanged in one of the wardrobes."

"Wrong _answer_." She flicked out a hand; a thin bolt of lightning arced over the desk to impact on the floor next to Irving's fleet. "Ser Rolande was playing games with her no adult should play with a child. So she made a deal with the creature the apprentices call the White Lady. It drank her life and used the power it gained to make Rolande fall down the stairs. And it probably used the excess to breach the Veil in the Harrowing Chamber. The apprentices have been killing themselves in an attempt to gain a little safety and a little bit of sodding _justice_. Mages, the same. The demon has been using that to gather power. Smartest thing Petra ever did was find a pretext to run from the Tower and take everyone she could convince to go with her."

Irving stiffened his shoulders. "What do you want?"

"Answers." She clenched her fist, clamping down on her power. _Save it._ "What's happened to the Fade beyond the Harrowing Chamber? It was once fenced off from the rest of the Fade. No more."

"I suppose there is no longer sense in hiding it." His voice was measured. "Uldred used the power of the pride demon he bargained with to bring down the barrier that kept that part of the Fade separate from the rest. He was one of those who helped maintain it. It was...not surprising that he knew how to dismantle it. We brought the barrier back up, but it was incomplete. Evidently something got through. Keir and Moira died to whatever that something is." Irving shook his head. "I have been trying to discover how that corner of the Fade was originally separated from the rest, but the sources lack details—except for the fact that it took a full Circle, fifty mages strong, to accomplish it."

"Why not _tell_ me? The Harrowing Chamber is an old road. I know the old roads, and how to communicate with what lives there. I could have _helped_, before everything got so bad!"

"It only worsened after you left for Waking Sea, Kathil." His deep voice sounded tired. "Without the Harrowing—and until the Harrowing Chamber is restored, there must be no more—apprentices cannot officially become mages, and they cannot be tested to the Chantry's satisfaction. The only choices we would have would be to agree to let all of the apprentices be made Tranquil when they reached their majority, or to let Greagoir call for the Right of Annulment. I preferred to not have to face that choice until all avenues of inquiry had been exhausted."

Kathil bit back her initial retort, which was fair obscene. "And so people have died while you studied."

"What would you have had me do?" he asked. "I had few options, none of them good."

"Evacuate the Tower," she said, her voice sharp and urgent. "Get everyone who didn't sign up to be in harm's way _out_. Which is, by the way, exactly what I'm going to ask you to do next. This thing gets its power by drinking lives. If we threaten it, it might try to pull more power the only way it knows how. Getting everyone who doesn't need to be in the fight across the water should protect them."

The lines between Irving's steel-colored brows deepened. "Greagoir will never allow it."

"If he has a problem with it, tell him to bring it to me. _Maker,_ Irving, at least get the kids out! An afternoon spent out of the Tower won't hurt them and it might do them some good. Take them for a walk. There's some Tevinter ruins just up the hill from the Princess. Those should be good for a few hours of running around and climbing on things, at least." She touched her Warden's Oath, and tried to curb her irritation. "I'm planning to get Greagoir to give you most of the Templars, as well. Just in case." She remembered too many small bodies curled in corners and against bookcases in the library, the usual background noises of the Tower replaced by scream-punctuated silence.

_Not again. Never again while I still have breath in my body to prevent it._

The First Enchanter nodded. "And if the worst happens—"

"Go to Ostagar," she said. "If I remember correctly, the Orlesian Grey Wardens cleared it out and are maintaining an outpost there. Ostagar was once a mage's stronghold, in the time of the Tevinters. It might serve again."

There were few places in Ferelden that might serve to be even a temporary home for the Circle. Ostagar, possibly Soldier's Peak; at a very outside chance the temple that guarded the entrance to the Gauntlet might suffice, though the Chantry might have a few choice words to say about that. Nowhere else. Nowhere else would even a small group of mages be tolerated, and there was nowhere in Ferelden that they would be welcome.

_Don't think about it._

"Take the Tranquil," Kathil said, her anger banking back to a low flame. "And make sure that nobody carries any beads out of the Tower. The demon leaves them behind when it visits. It might be able to use them to find victims."

In the First Enchanter's eyes was dawning some realization, denial stripping away. "I was under the impression that the apprentices had discovered a cache of beads somewhere, perhaps left over from a glassworking experiment. There are so many abandoned things in the Tower."

She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she'd had the luxury of being away from the Tower for half a year, and that the taint in her blood seemed to grant resistance to some of the subtler mind-affecting magics. Everyone in the Tower except the Tranquil was likely influenced by this thing. Despair was tricky. It would slip into a soul and make itself at home, all the while whispering that this was normal, this was how you'd always felt, this sadness and helplessness.

Maker knew she'd had enough experience with the home-grown variety in the last few years.

This was what happened when a place gave into despair: it slowed down, came to a stop. Experiments were abandoned. Plants in the greenhouse died for want of a simple repair to a valve. Rooms that had once been full of life emptied, old blood still spattered high on the walls. Children banded together in fierce little tribes, killed themselves to secure a little safety for those left behind. Life became cheaply bought; death was an ever-present companion.

The dead walked the halls, and silence trailed behind them like a Summerday veil.

"Go," she said, her voice low. "I will do what needs to be done. You have an hour or so to get everyone organized and get out."

She turned on her heel and walked out. In her pocket, she felt Jowan stir. She'd decided that it would be better if there weren't any awkward questions about why she was carrying a mouse on her shoulder—not just yet, at least. Her mind was already focused on what she was going to find upstairs. The Harrowing Chamber had all of the makings of a very solid old road; magic and death would tie the Fade and the physical world together like nothing else, thin the Veil as souls passed through. The fact that the dubious safety of the barrier was gone meant that there were probably all _kinds_ of things clustered nearby, waiting for a chance to come into this world. She was a little surprised that they had not seen an infestation of lesser demons already.

In fact, _why_ had they not seen demons coming through? Either the absence of the Veil was a very new phenomenon, or...

The rip had better be new, because the alternative was not something she wanted to think about.

*****

_Zevran:_

The infirmary was quiet, and Cullen was not in his bed.

Zevran ran his hand over the blanket; a bit of warmth told him that the Templar had only recently arisen and was likely still in the vicinity. Likely he'd gone in search of a bath and something to eat, escaping the infirmary while the mages were elsewhere. The mages' bathing rooms, fitted with clever plumbing that brought lakewater inside and took the chill off of it, were down the hall.

He took off towards the bathing rooms. He'd seen the bathing facilities on the apprentices' floor but had never, thankfully, had need to avail himself of them. The apprentices' baths were tubs separated by curtains. This being the Senior Enchanters' floor, the baths were all carved stone in small, private rooms off of a central room where towels and soap and such were stocked.

He paused in that room, listening. Soft splashing came from behind a closed door. He rapped on the door three times and called "Cullen? Is that you?"

The splashing stilled. "What?" came Cullen's voice from the other side.

One of the delightful things about the Tower was how there were few doors and no locks in any of the residential spaces. The door opened under Zevran's hand. "Finish up," he told the startled (and naked and wet and toothsome despite the marks that the lyrium withdrawal had left on him) Templar. "It appears that the two of us are needed."

Cullen blinked at him. "For _what_?"

"Demons in the Harrowing Chamber. Again. Quite charming, really, I am _so_ looking forward to a repeat of last year's little adventure. Not to mention that of three or so years ago." He shook his head. "Our Grey Warden requested that I get you on your feet and into armor."

Ah, that was a familiar suspicious look. "Why me? It's not like there aren't other Templars here, it's the _Tower_."

"Because," he said, "you are Kathil's sworn Templar, and she thinks she will have need of you."

And there was an admission to freeze the blood.

Cullen ducked his head under the water and came up with his curls plastered to his scalp. "Maker's Breath, Zevran, isn't there anyone else?"

Zevran moved quickly, while Cullen's sight was still blurred by water. The stone tub had a wide rim, more than large enough for a moderately graceful person to balance on. He was up on it without thought, crouching and placing one hand on the Templar's chin and the other on his head. A bit of pressure, a sudden movement, and Cullen's neck would snap. Zevran had done much the same so many times before. "Let me remind you, just in case you have forgotten," he said, keeping his voice light. "Our Grey Warden has placed both her reputation and her life on the line for you a number of times. She is your commander, and you have sworn yourself to her personal service. Her word is law."

The Templar wrenched himself out of Zevran's hands, and Zevran let him go. Water sloshed out onto the floor as he hit the other end of the tub, then surged to his feet. "You have no right—"

Zevran hopped down from the edge of the tub. "Do I not, Cullen? Tell me, which of us served at our Warden's side during the war, and which of us threw her concern back in her face when she attempted to rescue him? Besides. You appear to have taken leave of your senses."

"Or come to them," Cullen growled. "I am a Templar, and she is an apostate, possibly a maleficar."

"Except that the Templars exiled you, no?" he pointed out. "And apostasy is in the eye of the beholder. You are a Warden." _Why_ had Kathil sent him to deal with her Templar? Zevran had been avoiding the man since their painfully eventful and overly long walk to the Tower. "And your commander needs you."

Cullen stared at him for a moment, and then climbed out of the tub. "Magic serves man, but should never rule over him. And _mages_ should be kept far away from authority of any kind." There was a strange look on his face, belying his words. Not the lyrium madness; something else. He was shedding water as he stepped towards Zevran. Droplets splashed into water already spilled on the floor. "Especially over Templars."

"And you tell me," he said, keeping his body still and his voice even, "that you care nothing for her, or me. Tell me that, Cullen, and I will leave you to your bath and the wrath of your commander when she discovers you have refused an order."

He had seen that look on the faces of many before. Alistair, the moment he realized that Kathil truly meant to make him King. Rinna, when she realized that there was no rescue coming. Anora discovering that she was betrayed; Loghain on his knees before the Warden, looking up at his own death. An Antivan mage falling backwards out of a carriage, fate intervening when his own hand and nerve had failed.

Cullen wore that look now. "I—" He broke off. There was something kin to fury rising in his eyes. "Maker _curse_ you, elf—"

Zevran was aware of what Cullen was about to do a moment before he found the Templar's mouth crashing down on his, a moment before his hands were on Cullen's wet shoulders, muscles singing with tension.

This had been inevitable since the moment he had walked into the room.

The Templar's furious hunger was met and matched with Zevran's own. Cullen swore like a sailor in the moments that he and Zevran were not kissing, and Zevran soon enough found himself unceremoniously naked, fetched up against the tub, Cullen's teeth sunk into the flesh of his shoulder. There was nothing gentle about this. There could not be; the Templar was too wounded to interpret a quiet touch as anything other than a reproach.

There was glory in this, as Zevran threw his head back and gave a cry that was near a howl. He forgot about everything, about the reason he'd been sent here in the first place, about the fight that was waiting for them. There was only need and desire and the white-hot edge of pain.

Some time later, they lay tangled on the wet stone floor. There were familiar booted footsteps outside the closed door, and an even more familiar voice called, "Zev? Cullen? Andraste's ankles, where _are_ you?" That irritation disguised worry, he knew.

Zevran briefly contemplated keeping his mouth shut. Alas, he seemed to have become ever so slightly honest these days. "In here," he called, and attempted to disentangle himself from Cullen, who had an expression that was equal parts consternation and satisfaction on his face. The door swung open, and Kathil stood in the doorway in full armor.

She looked at the two of them, and blinked. "I would ask what the two of you have been up to, but it's abundantly clear."

Her expression was outwardly calm, but there were blades beneath that quiet. Fortunately, she was not angry—not at them, at least. "We appear to have gotten sidetracked, no?" Zevran said, and gave her his most charming smile. "I suppose it is time to go beard the demon in its lair, so to speak."

"You two might want to consider putting some armor on," Kathil said. "And picking up some weaponry other than the obvious." She raised an eyebrow. "Though I'm sure the demon would be very impressed with you just as you are."

"Well, we _are_ very pretty, are we not? It is a novel strategy, to blind the demon with our beauty." Zevran grinned at her. He could almost feel Cullen's blush. The Templar had not _quite_ had all of his modesty removed yet. "Perhaps you should let us dress before the Templar here bursts into flame."

Kathil looked the two of them over, and Zevran did not miss the flicker of desire in her eyes. "Likely. Meet us up by the stairs to the Harrowing Chamber." She opened her mouth to add something, then apparently thought better of it. Evidently retreat was the better part of valor, in this case.

She was gone before any of them could say anything more, the door swinging closed in her wake. Zevran disentangled himself from Cullen, cataloging each part of himself that hurt. _Should I be so fortunate as to live until tomorrow, the morning is going to be _exquisitely_ painful._

Then he caught a glimpse of Cullen out of the corner of his eye. The other man was pulling on his shirt, and there were bloody gouges along his shoulders. Zevran grinned to himself. _But if I die this afternoon, at least I will have spent my last hours altogether pleasantly._

Cullen was acting...a bit sheepish, was the only term he could think for it. The hard mask was back in place, but somehow a little cracked, a little crooked. It would do, and if they lived, perhaps there would be time to pry it off entirely.

First, though, there was to be a fight. Perhaps the third time he fought in the Harrowing Chamber would be the charm, though the second time had not been so much of a _fight_, as it were. More of a being surprised and stunned and flayed alive, really. So the second time.

Still. It _could_ be the charm. Certainly their side was better prepared than the last few times.

Of course, it was likely that their opponent was, as well. But when had they ever not been?

He went to get his armor and weapons, Cullen on his heels.

*****

_Lorn:_

Now, this is a fine thing indeed. His human is pacing the hall near the stairs, inspecting knights and Mabari. She is alert, calm, focused; he approves. And her dust-knight is here, as well, which is something else he approves of. The mage-pups, mages, and mages-who-were have been sent away, across the lake, and have taken Fiann with them. The pup is less than half a year old still, and she is not yet up for a battle against a demon in its own den.

The other Mabari are here as well. Jeseth lounges by the stairs. Littine is curving her body around one of the knights, one she has been spending much of her time with. The other two sniff around the hallway, their stubby tails wagging. There are more footsteps coming down the hall, and he and his human turn in the same moment, the nearness of battle attuning them to each other.

It is the alpha knight, the knight who is older than the rest and leads the knight-pack as sternly as Lorn leads his own. His human and the alpha knight do not like each other, but they have settled into a grudging respect for one another. "Greagoir, I thought you were going with the rest," his human says. She is both pleased and displeased. Humans are strange like that sometimes. They can keep two feelings together, rubbing up against each other.

"You specified the Templars with the strongest talent for sealing the Veil," the alpha knight says. "I am among those."

She gives a small sigh, almost a regular exhale. "As long as you can follow orders," she says. "The old roads take a certain amount of care to deal with. Charging into it without taking proper care will kill us all. Speaking of—everyone, listen up!" She turns away from the alpha knight, and the rest of the knights come up attention. Jeseth climbs to his feet. "Zevran, Cullen, Lorn and I will go up the stairs first. I'll whistle when it's safe to proceed. Templars, your task—your _only_ task—is to get the Veil back up. Leave the demon to us, and don't be surprised at anything you see. I've never seen a despair demon before, very few people have. It likely has defenses we know nothing of. We know it has a low-level ability to read minds, and to cast illusions. It will likely attempt to use guilt against us. Just follow my lead, and Zevran and Cullen's. If you have any doubt as to what is and is not a demon, watch the Mabari. They will know. Everyone understand?"

The knights nod. His human kneels down and scratches Lorn under his chin. He gives a chuff of appreciation and puts his head on her shoulder. "You've got a very important job," she says, softly. "I have to know what's a demon and what's real. Up for it?"

Of course he is. He nudges his nose against her ear, and she squeaks and laughs. We have intruded on these territories before. We will again.

"You can say that again," she says, and hugs him. She is ice and hunger, and the pup-smell on her is growing stronger. She stands, and starts up the stairs.

His human's elf and her dust-knight follow, and Lorn is behind them, and together they go into a territory that is unlike any he has ever encountered before.

*****

_Kathil:_

She held up a hand, and stopped. She heard the others come to a halt as well, and dropped to one knee on the stairs, putting her palm flat on the ground.

They were just beyond the landing on the very fringes of the old road, where the Veil was still intact though thin. She had been on many old roads in her time, these places where the Fade and the physical world rubbed shoulders. The old roads had always struck her as half-asleep, travelers on them nothing more than brief disturbances in the dreams of what slumbered within the crossroads.

This old road was awake.

And it was _angry_.

Kathil insinuated a quiet question to it, slipping her intention through the anger as she might thread a needle. She had learned to do this through long practice and longer pain. _Might I be welcome to tread?_

She tried not to quail as she felt the attention of the old road turn to her. _Thee,_ it said, and its voice was multitudes. _We know thee, thrice-bound. Thou hast passed this way before. We know thy blood, and the blood of the elf and the hound. We know the footsteps of the human._ Pain, pain, pain; the Veil was missing and while the old roads might be a crossroad between the two worlds, having the barrier between them completely gone was causing the presences massive agony. _Thou art not unwelcome. Unlike some._

It was as good as she was going to get for the moment. "The old road is awake. We have a...pass, I suppose is the right word. It definitely knows something is here that doesn't belong. It won't help, but it won't be actively hindering us either."

Jowan was next to her; he had apparently used her moment of stillness to climb out of her pocket and change back into a human. "This place _reeks_ of blood magic."

"It would," Kathil said. "Uldred set up shop here."

He shook his head. "Uldred was, what, three years ago? Some of this is fresher. What was Uldred doing? Can you tell me any details?"

"Calling demons through the Veil to create abominations out of mages, mostly. Why?"

The blood mage's face was set in a grim expression. "Because a lot of what I'm feeling is unrelated. Look." He went up a few steps, pointed at a design painted in what appeared to be dried blood. "It's a boundary rune, and it's less than a year old. Blood runes have to be refreshed every so often, and this one is still strong."

Kathil stared at the design, a sick feeling of dismay rising in her gut. "Do you know how these are made, Jowan?"

"Just the theory. Usually, you carve the design into someone's flesh with a spelled blade. Preferably not your own flesh, because even if the subject survives, the wounds will take a long time to heal." He peered at the rune. "Then you use the spilled blood to paint the rune in the same design. It takes a lot of practice to get it right." Jowan glanced at her. "Are you all right? I thought with everything you'd been through, a little blood wouldn't affect you."

"I recognize the design," she said, keeping her voice soft. "I see it pretty much every night." She glanced at Zevran. "It's on your left shoulder."

"Me? Ah, but—" Zevran frowned, his tattoos bending. "There is a certain rather...appalling possibility that occurs to me. Neither of us had ever seen the likes of the thing that captured me in the Harrowing Chamber. I assumed that the Crows had resources that I was not aware of. But if it was, perhaps, something that had come through the Veil..."

"A harbinger," Kathil said. "One who prepares the way. That's why you lived long enough for me and Lorn to catch up with you." She remembered it so clearly, coming up the stairs to see the shifting shadows of nightmares, Zevran covered in blood. She had fought nightmares, and Lorn had found and fought the thing she had thought was a Crow master assassin. She had thought that whatever it was had summoned the nightmares as a distraction.

Perhaps that had not been the case at all. The memory twisted—a careless assassin, pursued by Zevran, killing the Templar who guarded the Harrowing Chamber, then caught by something waiting beyond the doorway, giving a body to something that Uldred's ill-fated rebellion had called. Zevran caught, his blood used to prepare the old road to eventually be used as a home base for a demon.

And before that, Kathil coming to the Tower exhausted and in pain, falling asleep in a bed and waking on an old road far from the Tower. That had to be connected—but how?

If Kathil had not come here, if Zevran had not followed, the despair demon might have never been able to gain the foothold it needed in this world. Or it might have managed it, but after the Circle was strong enough to withstand it, not after it had been weakened by assault after assault. She took a breath, then another. "I have to wonder what the Crows thought when they opened the package I sent them," she said, her voice holding a savage humor. "That may come back to haunt me."

"Everything does, it seems," Zevran said. "So. What do we do?"

Good question. "Jowan, is there anything you can do to undo the runes?"

Jowan's dark eyebrows drew together. "There is, but you're not going to like it. In theory—and this is only theory, mind—the same person's blood that was used to create the sigils can be used to alter or break them. Better stick to breaking them, since I've never used blood runes before and I'd need to do some research before I tried to attempt alteration. Ruining them should be easy."

"You're right. I don't like it." She scowled.

"If the runes aren't broken, there's every possibility that the Veil here won't be able to be sealed," he said. "I won't know what the rest of the runes are doing until we get there, and maybe not even then. But the Veil doesn't _like_ being torn, Kathil. It seals itself, given half a chance. There has to be something major holding it open here."

"I am _not_ letting you carve on Zev—"

Zevran had moved close, and now put a hand on her shoulder. "Kathil," he said. It was rare that he would use her name, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. "I do not like the idea either. But it may be necessary. Let us not decide anything based on a single rune, yes?" His gaze was intent on hers. "We should investigate further before we make any decisions."

She bowed her head briefly. "Fine. Jowan—" She took a breath. "You do realize that if Greagoir sees you, _especially_ if he sees you using blood magic...being a Grey Warden isn't going to be enough to save you. I will fight for you, but if I can't talk him out of it..."

"I know." There were volumes of sorrow and acceptance in those two words that Jowan spoke. "I have been living on borrowed time for years. If I do this, it might be enough to redeem myself a bit." He gave her a long look, acknowledging that all of their plans might come unraveled here.

She could not bring herself to argue. She could feel Cullen watching the three of them silently, and wondered what he thought of her—of all of them. _Does it matter?_ She had known it would come to this some day, to what was between them being composed merely of duty and whatever it was about the two of them that drove them together, over and over, without regard for their opinions in the matter.

She merely hadn't expected it to be so soon.

_Think about it later, if we live._

"Up the stairs," she said aloud. "Let's go see what we have to deal with."

* * *

_Is there only one religion  
the kind that whispers when nobody comes around?_

_\--Over the Rhine, "The World Can Wait"_


	8. Winterborn

_Cullen:_

The first time he had been called to deal with demons in the Harrowing Chamber, he had been trapped with the other Templars before he had managed to make it even to the stairs.

The second time, he had been cooling his heels in a cell in the basement while the Tower was attacked by assassins.

It seemed that the third time was in fact going to be the charm for actually being _present_ when he was needed. He tried to settle himself into battle focus, into calm alertness, and tried to forget his indiscretion of only an hour earlier. What had he been _thinking_?

Well, he knew what he had been thinking. He just wasn't sure why.

And then to get _caught_—

_Right. Focus._

They passed through the door on the landing, and went up the stairs into the Harrowing Chamber proper. All of his nerves screamed at him that the Veil here was compromised—not just compromised but shattered, and trying to look around made his head spin. He could see the Harrowing Chamber, the lyrium font and the stone floor and large windows, but at the same time he could see a twisted statue, tortured spires and arches, and the floor was not made of stone but of pebble-dotted sand.

"Maker," Cullen muttered. It was like the time Guaire had hit him on the head during practice, and he'd seen double for a few hours afterward. And he could swear there were things moving in his peripheral vision. There were no demons immediately apparent, but he drew his sword anyway and slid his arm into the straps of his shield.

The blood mage was pacing the edge of the room. "Five runes—no, six."

"You're looking for twelve," Kathil replied. "Any idea what they're doing?"

"Boundary markers," Jowan said. "So far, anyway."

"Company," Zevran said, his voice low and urgent. "Far wall."

A moment before, that space had been empty. Now, a woman stood there. He heard Lorn's low growl as the Mabari flattened his ears against his head and stepped forward.

Jowan was scrambling back towards them as Cullen stepped in front of Kathil. "Begone, demon!" he shouted, trying to make his voice ring like he'd heard Greagoir's do so often.

The demon—the despair demon, or something else?—smiled. She looked like a woman of middle years, dressed in shabby clothing. If he had passed her in Denerim's market, he would never have suspected her of being anything other than human. "Is that any way to welcome a friend?" she asked, and the lines at the corners of her eyes deepened. "A fellow warrior, concerned only with returning what has been stolen? You are treading on my own ground, mortals. I could have killed you already, if that was my intention."

"And what is your intention?" Kathil asked. "Because your work has surely not been what I would describe as _friendly_."

"Not friendly? Blessings, child. I have only sought to help."

The mage choked. "_Help?_ Convincing people to commit suicide is _helping?_"

_Stop talking to it,_ Cullen wanted to tell her. _Call the Templars. Kill it. _But he did not move, did not speak.

The creature pressed two fingers to her lips briefly, smiling behind them. "Establishing my ground took much of my power, limited my reach. What has been given was given freely. I compelled no one, and I have kept my promises. Did not the man who lusted after child-flesh suffer a fatal accident? Does not the leader of the knights have back with him the one thing that is bound to make demeanor less fearsome?" Her mouth curved narrowly. "Are you not here, thrice-bound mortal? Do not tell me that you think it was mere chance that caused your oathbound to have such dreams while you were still within reach of this place. Another two days and you would have elected to go south and come back in the spring, when my dominion of this place was complete."

Kathil paled. Cullen wondered what in Thedas the demon was talking about. They had been traveling to the Tower. What could have made them decide to turn away? He heard Kathil shift, and then the ring of steel as she drew her sword. "You do know that we cannot allow you to stay."

"No?" The demon tilted her head. "The Unwilling speak of you as a mortal of a certain...expedient temperament, with a generous touch of righteousness. My task is an honorable one. You have killed so many of us, thrice-bound. Do you not wish to understand why?"

"Speak," the mage said, growling low. "Quickly."

_This is not going to end well, talking to demons never ends well—_

But his oath was given, and one look from Kathil rooted him in place.

The demon gave him a distantly amused look, then transferred her attention back to the mage. She stepped forward. "Something was stolen from us, many of your years ago. We were playing host to visitors from the mortal realm—and such visitors! Your kind is much diminished in these later years, mortal. Your brothers and sisters were _magnificent_. But while we played together in the eternal gardens of the Golden City, while we sat at their feet and listened to stories of the mortal realm, while we played endless shadow-shows for them, a thief was slipping into the Golden City. Something was stolen, taken out of the Golden City and brought to this world." She shook her head. "In an instant, everything was changed. Our visitors became the Unwilling, trapped in our realm. The Golden City became the Black City, and it is a howling hole at the heart of us. You have heard it screaming, thrice-bound. You have heard its call. I merely pursue that which was taken."

"What was it?" Kathil asked. Beside Cullen, Lorn snarled.

"She has no true name in any of your mortal tongues. The Unwilling called her Elpis. She was the Voice of the Golden City. My daughter, my sister, born of my very being in the time before we had names and aspects, when we were nothing more than motes of music. I believe that the thief bound her and gave her into the custody of a mortal. A woman. What has become of the Voice, I cannot say. And that is why I am here. To find her and bring her back to the Black City, my daughter, our only hope for salvation."

"You _lie_." The words burst out of Cullen, unbidden. "The Tevinter magisters tried to conquer the Golden City. The _mages_ brought sin to Heaven, and doom on us all."

Was that _pity_ on the demon's face? "Oh, little oathbound. Look at the one who holds your heart in your hand. She knows the truth of what I say." The demon's clothing was changing, first bleaching and then changing into a dress seemingly made of white beads, nearly blinding in their brilliance. Her face was changing too, becoming younger, dark hair bleaching to near-white. Only her black eyes and her red, red lips retained any color. "I know you, oathbound. I know the most secret desires of your heart, and I know that your precious _Chantry—_" she nearly spat the word— "would have you reject the one thing that would bring you joy. Or do you think you were dreaming, oathbound? The sweet wife, the adorable children?"

And she was a child. Her white dress was too long for her, and had dirt on the hem where it had dragged in the mud. "Like father, like son," she said in a voice far too mature for that slight form. "Will you lose your daughter as I have lost mine, oathbound?"

Cullen recoiled. "_Demon_."

"Mmmm. So your kind terms me." She was a woman again, tall and lean, her black hair bound in what seemed like hundreds of narrow plaits. She stepped to the side, and despite knowing that she was not real, Cullen found that her grace seemed to stab directly into his heart. "We come here because the mortal world is a light, and we of the Fade are mired in darkness. You mortals do not realize how very beautiful this place is." She changed again, and this time Cullen recognized the form—Lily, the Chantry initiate who had been sent to the Aeonar after she had colluded with Jowan. "I have come to appreciate it in the short time I have been here. Even this circumscribed existence is preferable to the darkness of the Fade." She turned to face Jowan. "She loved you to her dying breath, little mage. And she denied having any idea where you might have gone to ground, despite the fact that she knew you would have fled to the Wilds."

"_Stop_," Kathil hissed and stepped forward, raising her sword. Light coruscated along the blade. "I don't appreciate being toyed with."

"Don't you?" The demon changed again, and Cullen's breath snagged in his throat as he saw that she now looked like Sati. "Do you deny that you craved that one last audience? First love is so sweet, so passionate. So doomed. Can you deny that of all things in this world, the one you want most is forgiveness?"

"I can," the mage said. She stepped forward, and again, as if drawn unwilling towards the demon.

_I have to go after her. Get her away._

But his feet were rooted. _No,_ raged the Templar within him, the Cullen who had been trapped for days with demons and the dead. _Let her fly her true flags, and kill her._

(And there was a lanky young boy and a ruddy-curled little girl in that place out of time, where his life once might have led.)

"It is all stories," Kathil said. "Andraste is a story, your Voice is a story, the Maker is a story. Our only truth is what we have experienced in these little lives of ours. Everything else is fables, fictions. All we know is who we love, and what we hate, and the wounds taken and healed." She glanced at Zevran, and for a moment there was silence. "I know a story as well. Would you like to hear it?"

The demon changed again, back to the white-haired woman. "I enjoy stories, thrice-bound."

Kathil was in motion. Slowly, she circled the demon, pacing deliberately. The demon watched her avidly. "You'll like this one. Once, long ago, a woman told her lover that she had forseen the fall of his house. Never, he said, never would the house of Valerius fall! He ordered her cursed, and turned to stone—but left her voice intact. He placed her at the entrance to his fortress so she could whisper her lies to all who entered. Such was the punishment for speaking out against his house."

"And? Did the house fall, as she foretold?"

"It did." Kathil smiled, and he could see what the demon likely could not. He knew that twist at the corner of her mouth so very well. "But it fell because Eleni Zinovia whispered far more than her prophecy to those who passed the portcullis. Had Archon Valerius heeded her words instead of punishing her, Valerius House might stand today, and her words would have been proven false. But we are small, we mortals, and our loves and our hatreds are similarly small. Something larger than us touches our lives and we flee in terror, huddling around campfires and telling ourselves stories to explain away what we cannot understand. We imprison those who have powers we do not comprehend, kill those who cannot submit. We sail on a sea of blood and call it water." Her eyes narrowed just a little, and she touched her lower lip with two fingers. "And we _lie_."

On that last word, she gestured with her sword, and hell poured from the blade. Through the roar of the magic cut Kathil's whistle, and Cullen realized distantly that Jowan and Zevran were running together towards the edge of the Harrowing Chamber, a deep cut in the elf's arm dripping blood, the blood mage stooping to swipe red-stained fingers across rusty designs.

Then he was free, and moving, and the rageful Templar within him submerged under the din of battle.

*****

_Kathil:_

She was ice and lightning, and the Fade bent beneath her touch.

The despair demon changed and changed again, splitting into five and then ten versions of itself. She traded blows with Sati, cut the head off of Lily, obliterated the woman who must have been Rinna with a blast of lightning. More of them appeared. There was no killing this thing; might as well try to kill a mountain. She could feel it, how deep its roots were in the Fade. This visible manifestation was only a part of something far larger.

What she _could_ do was distract it while Jowan and the Templars did their work.

Working magic on the old roads was so easy. Without the Veil, her access to the power of the Fade was unfettered, and for once she gave into it. Cullen was fighting beside her, and Lorn. The rest of the Mabari, as well. The demon fought back with whips of raw power, using its manifestations to trap her in place for a moment so it could attempt to stun her. Kathil sidestepped, she faded from sight for moments at a time, she drowned manifestations in the waters of the Fade, but nothing she did diminished the demon in any way.

Heartbeats passed. She did not know how many.

The Fade shivered, rippling around her. The bonds that anchored the old road were coming loose, and she could hear the presences in the old road screaming.

Voices.

So _many_.

She knew where all of those who had failed their Harrowing had ended up.

_The Unwilling come_!

The despair demon was smiling, all of her manifestations. "Oh, this should be amusing," one of her said. Then there was only one of her, her dress dripping beads. "I call your little bluff, thrice-bound. Tell me. Are you willing to risk all of those who stand beside you? I suppose we will see, won't we?"

In the shifting shadows of the Fade, the nightmares moved.

There were so _many_ of them. So many twisted forms, armored and scaled and clawed. Some looked like the strange statues that were scattered through the Fade, attenuated humanoids with bizarre, jointed wings. Some crept like rats. Others flew from spire to spire, wrapping their wings around the spires as they landed.

The largest was one that Kathil recognized. She had first met it on the old road in Waking Sea, the dragonlike thing with burning green eyes, its powerful hind legs carrying it swiftly towards her. "I can call them off," the demon whispered. "I will call the Unwilling away, if you only stop those would ruin what I have built. Or I can leave you to them. Do you think your knights will close the Veil before the Unwilling kill you and escape into the mortal world?"

The nightmares—the Unwilling, as the demon termed them—slowed as they approached. The largest regarded Kathil with that intelligent stare, and its narrow nostrils in that dragonlike muzzle flared.

The demon kept calling her _thrice-bound_. Bound first to the Circle, bound second to the Wardens.

What was the third binding?

Looking at the nightmares, she thought she might know.

She had been a mouse, a bonfire, a spirit, a stone, all trapped within the nightmare of a Templar, inside a Tower aflame with the fears of those who lived within. She remembered. And she remembered what it was to have Urthemiel pass through her. All the Old God had once been. All that he had become.

Kathil closed her eyes, and called forth the thing within her that she had spent years fighting to understand.

Around her bloomed the body of a dragon.

*****

_The Thrice-Bound:_

She screamed a challenge—_her_ territory, _her_ people, _her road. _ She snapped her wings outward and took off, glorying in freedom, in flight. The winged ones swarmed upwards, and she batted them away.

The human was tucked away in her belly, curled tightly, no longer in control.

When she landed again, the Unwilling scattered away from her. _Mine_, she hissed. _Not yours._

The Fade around her was shifting. The song of the old road rose, hundreds of souls straining at their bindings. Behind her, the Veil was closing. The human within her was beginning to panic, and she ignored it. She stalked toward the Unwilling; her tail lashed, catching an unwary crawler and sending it sailing away. There was a demon here as well. It had retreated, regarding her with a calm, curious stare.

The Unwilling out in front, the leader, shifted in its place. _Yours,_ it agreed. _Yours. But—freedom?_

She opened her mouth, showing the Unwilling her teeth. _Not now._ She opened her wings wide. _It is defeated._

_Perhaps._ It sat back on its haunches, scratched its scaled belly with one delicate forelimb. _For now. Will not always be. Return. Voice will. Hope. Light._

_Some time._ Restless, she clawed at the sandy stone beneath one foot. _Not this day. Go._

The Unwilling dipped its head, and got up from its haunches. _Greatest of us. You will be._ It whirled and chirped a clicking call. For a moment, a bare moment, she could see into its body, through armor and muscle, to what lay within. It was wizened, hairless, rotting cloth hanging shredded from its body.

It was only barely recognizable as having once been human.

The things loped away. She hissed at them as they went, and shook her head. Folding her wings, she surveyed her new territory. The song of the Harrowed was rising, the bindings on the old road were giving away. This was as it should be. The human stretched within her, kicked, struggled.

_Be calm. _

The Veil was reforming, closing, and as it did so the bindings on the old road broke. The Harrowed rose screaming, and as one they darted towards the manifestation of the demon, seeking revenge on what had hurt them so. The demon vanished, and the Harrowed followed.

There was a hard hand on the human's ankle, pulling her, and the Thrice-Bound screamed, beating her wings against the ground.

_Too late, too late—_

The human was yanked through the Veil, and the dragon folded down, down, down, into darkness.

*****

_Zevran:_

In the moments after, silence reigned in the Harrowing Chamber.

The Templars lay tumbled against the walls like so many suits of armor, just beginning to stir. Warhounds lay among them, stirring as well. The sensation of the world being doubled had vanished entirely, and the demon and the...other things had gone with it. Zevran had a hand wrapped around his forearm, where a deep cut still welled blood between his fingers. Next to him, Jowan was attempting to rise and failing. The blood mage slumped, giving up the fight to rise. The power that had been unleashed when the Veil had closed had knocked them all off their feet, tossed knights at the walls like toys.

It had been close, too close. He and Jowan had moved from sigil to sigil, the blood mage using Zevran's blood to slash through the designs. He thought that the Templars had not been _quite_ sure what they were seeing, and if they had known they had conveniently decided to ignore it in favor of trying to force the Veil closed. Zevran had seen the things Kathil called nightmares arrive.

Had seen her somehow _transform._

She and the Mabari had bought them time. Time enough for all of the sigils to be destroyed, time enough for the Templars to weave the Veil closed once more. It had only been at that last moment when he realized that Kathil-as-dragon was going to be on the wrong side of the Veil when it closed, trapped physically in the Fade.

Cullen had realized it as well, and he had been closer. He had somehow reached _into_ the dragon's shifting form, and pulled—something—out and away. The sight had made no _sense_, and yet Kathil was sprawled face-down on the floor of the Harrowing Chamber, Cullen sitting down with his hand still on the mage's ankle.

The Templar moved so he could put his hand on the mage's neck. After a moment, he pulled his hand away. "She lives," he said into the silence. Lorn was limping across the Harrowing chamber, and lay down next to Kathil with a huge sigh. Zevran abandoned Jowan, struggling to his feet. The fifteen feet he had to cover to get to Kathil seemed like miles, but he sank down next to her. He pulled on her shoulder, rolling her to her back.

The armor she wore was cold enough to nearly burn him when he touched it. Her skin was not much warmer; where a drop of his blood fell on her cheek, a wisp of steam rose. That she still lived was evident from her slow, steady breathing, but how? She felt as though she should be frozen solid. Her lips were blue, as were the nearly bruiselike circles beneath her eyes.

At the edges of the chamber, the Templars were beginning to stir. Zevran tried to force himself to think. They would kill Jowan, of course. No great loss there. He wondered how much of what Kathil had done they had seen, how they would interpret it.

He had seen much of it, and even he was not sure what possible interpretation there was. They would have to wait for Kathil to wake and explain.

Her breathing deepened, and her lips flushed and became more their usual color. Zevran touched her cheek, brushed away a stray lock of hair. "Wake, little bird," he murmured. "Lest we all lose more than we want in this room."

The mage took a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. A quizzical expression corssed her face, followed by recognition. "How—" She coughed. "How long was I out?"

"Moments," he told her. Lorn, hearing his human wake, whined and nudged her hand, then put his head on her stomach.

She lifted her hand to touch her cheek, frowning as if she were startled to discover that she was in a human body. "Jowan," she said, her voice cracking. "Still alive?"

"He is, as well as Cullen."

"Good. Jowan must survive, Zev. More important than you know."

There was a rising clatter, groans as men in armor got to their feet. He did not question why she had suddenly decided that the blood mage needed to live. He would save that question and so many others for later. "Then we should stand, because I do not think Jowan is capable of sitting up right now, much less defending his life."

"_Maker_." She struggled to sit up. Lorn got to his feet and allowed her to brace herself on him, helping her stand. Zevran got to his feet as well. Perhaps they had gotten lucky, and Greagoir had perished?

Not today, it seemed. Two Templars were helping Greagoir stand. The Knight Commander looked shaken, his face tinged a bit gray, but he didn't appear to be badly injured. "The Veil has been sealed," he said. "The demon?"

"Not dead, but she won't be returning this way for a very long time to come," Kathil said. "This is no longer an old road, and from the feel of things the Veil is nearly as strong here as it would have been if it never had been." She paused and looked at the Knight Commander. "I think it has been a very long day, Ser Greagoir. Are we going to make it even longer with more unpleasantries?"

Greagoir looked at Jowan, who was stirring, trying to sit up again. Then he looked at Cullen, then Zevran, then back at Kathil. "I beleive," he said, his tenor voice slowing, "that I and the rest of the Templars will go downstairs. We have all seen many things that were not real, this afternoon. When it comes to the beings of the Fade, it is unwise to trust one's eyes. If any aftereffects should _linger_, we will deal with them. Swiftly, and without mercy."

Well. Who knew that the formidable Knight Commander actually had a sense of self-preservation under all that armor and dutifulness? Or perhaps that was gratitude. Difficult to say. He felt Kathil's stance shift and soften. "I think anything remaining will be gone in a little while," she said. "It's safe to bring the mages back, now."

"Not for long." That was Carroll. He was leaning on the wall, and pointed at the east window. "Weather coming up."

If fate had a sense of dramatic timing, they would have been trying to fight their battle with rain beating against the windows, illuminated by flashes of lightning. But, no. Fate had a sense of _comedic_ timing, proof of which was heading their way in the form of the first of the traditional autumn storms. They always came in from the southeast, picking up speed and fury once they hit the lake, and crossing even the relatively protected distance between the docks and the Tower could become exceedingly tricky when they did. The storm was just in time to make sure that there was a good chance that those who had crossed the lake would spend the night at the docks.

"We'll send the signal," Greagoir said. "Fortune and the Maker willing, Irving will be able to get himself and the rest back before the storm arrives. Warden." He nodded to Kathil, and turned toward the stairs.

They watched the Templars file out and down the stairs. Three of the Templars together hoisted the largest of the warhounds, who appeared to have taken quite the beating, and bore him away, followed by the others save for Lorn. Kathil took Zevran's hand, twining still-cold fingers with his own. "We'll rest," she said. "Maker knows we've weathered storms in less comfortable surroundings. I'd fix your arm if I could, but I think wrapping it up is going to have to do for the moment." She gave him a sidelong look. _Don't ask,_ said that look, the slight shake of her head. _Not now._

They drifted towards the window, each of them, as they could. Zevran sat with his back to a stone support on the low, wide windowsill, Kathil sitting in front of him, her back pressed against him. Cullen sat down facing them, his own back against stone. Lorn limped to the window and lay down, his left front leg held out awkwardly before him. Jowan came over as well, paler than Zevran had ever seen him. The blood mage sat on the floor and leaned on the sill, looking to the east.

They watched as the storm arrived and streaked the pebbled glass, blue-white lightning sheeting across black clouds. Thunder growled, drowning out the patter of rain against the window. Slowly, Kathil's body warmed against his until holding her was less like grasping an icicle and more like embracing a human woman.

In silence but for the fury of the storm venting itself against the Tower, they waited for their strength to return.

* * *

_And in the fury of this darkest hour_   
_We will be the light_   
_You've asked me for my sacrifice_   
_And I am Winter born_   
_Without denying, a faith in man_   
_That I have never known_   
_I hear the angels call my name_   
_And I am Winter born_

—_Cruxshadows, "Winterborn"_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...wow, writing that took a lot out of me. And now we have answers to some questions that have been open since "Waking Hours". It may also prove enlightening to read my story "But A Sword", available on my profile—it's in the same continuity as "Old Roads", and this particular chapter recasts that story in a different light.
> 
> I finished my first playthrough of Awakening the other day, and I'm still working on how I'm going to work it in here. I will, never fear; it might take some tinkering with timelines, but the events of Awakening actually dovetail quite nicely with what I'd had planned for "Pitiless Games".
> 
> I thank everyone who's reviewed. Your kind words keep my mind on this project when it probably ought to be elsewhere. :)


	9. Dogs and Wolves

_A dog is but two meals away from a wolf.  
\--Avvar saying_

**   
**

* * *

**  
**

_Fiann:_

It has been a _fun_ day!

Her knight told her to go with the mages, and she was so _happy_ to see him moving around and acting like a person again instead of a warm lump under blankets that she scampered off without another thought. Even the fact that Lorn and the other Mabari were staying didn't faze her. First there had been a ride in a boat, and _then_ they had gone for a walk and some of the people-pups fell into a stream, and then there were funny-shaped rocks to climb on and tunnel under and _rabbits_ and _squirrels_ and the people-pups were laughing and it was _good_. Then they all sat down and ate on the sun-warmed rocks, and Fiann pranced from person to person, collecting scratches and pettings.

And _then_ one of the people-pups found a stick and started throwing it for her! Then the people-pups started tussling over who was going to get to throw the stick next, and the paper-mage stepped in and settled the tussle by something called _taking turns_. Things went more smoothly after that.

And now, it is time to go home! The knight who waited by the docks has come to tell them that it is time for another boat ride. Fiann is beside herself with joy at the prospect of seeing her knight, and runs ahead of the mage-pack, down the hill. The wind is coming up and bringing with it all kinds of interesting smells—wet dirt, lightning sharp like magic, animal-things and people-things, smoke. The lake's surface is riffled up into waves that break on the sand of the beach, and she runs and runs and runs, trying to pounce on the waves and pin them down. She is not successful.

Only then does she notice that there are people standing on the wooden dock, arguing.

One of them is her friend the boat-human, the one who wouldn't let her take the wonderful stick that he used to make the boat go. She's forgiven him, of course, but maybe this time he will give it to her? The others she doesn't recognize, but she runs up to them anyway, wagging. Hello! Hello! Hello, new friends!

"There you are, little one," the boat-human says. "See? I told you they had a Mabari with them. If this fine little thing is here, the rest of the mages can't be far behind. Not that I have good news for any of you."

"Are you sure you can't get us across before the storm hits?" the female human who is encased in armor says.

"Over? Yeah. Back? No, and before you suggest it I am _not_ getting m'self stranded over there." The boat-human is growling. There is another human, one wearing robes, who smells like a mage. He is scuffing his foot on the boards of the dock, and his hands are behind his back. "I'm sorry, Ser Rylock, but the answer is no. The storm will blow over by tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

The female gives an impatient grunt. "All I want is to hand this one over and get myself gone. Maker, if I have to spend one more night keeping an eye on this long lout..."

"I _can_ hear you, you know." The robed man bends over a bit, peering at Fiann. "You're a cute thing."

Oh, he's paying _attention_ to her! Fiann rears up and puts her paws on his knees, wagging furiously. Unexpectedly, he doesn't reach down to pet her. Why _not_? She thinks hard, then remembers. Right Sit for pettings! She plops her hindquarters down, still wagging, and looks up hopefully. Now? Am I good _now_?

"Er. Sorry, puppy. Hands manacled behind my back. Unless you can convince the good Templar here to free my hands so I can give you the scratchings you obviously deserve..." The robed human looks sidelong at the armored woman.

"Since when does the Tower have Mabari?" the one in armor asks.

"This little one belongs to one of the Grey Wardens," the boat-human says. Fiann gives up on the robed man and goes over to him, this time remembering to sit politely for her pettings. "The other Warden has a full-grown one. And they brought two breeding pairs here. Evidently, they'll be leaving the pairs here when they go."

"_More_ Grey Wardens," the mage grumbles. "And I had such a good time with the last lot."

The knight scowls. "Do you ever shut _up_? Look, Kester, I don't suppose you could tell me anything about what's going on at the Tower."

"Nope." The boat-human scratches Fiann's chest, and she squeezes her eyes closed in appreciation. "All I know is that I saw the beacon about noon and ended up poling over a bunch of mages who haven't been out of the Tower in years, and a corresponding bunch of Templars. Earned my pay today, right enough. They lit the beacon again about half an hour ago, and I sent Ser Oreth after them. Half of the mages looked scared out of their minds. The kids, though. It was good to see them get out into the sunshine." There is an undercurrent of tension in the boat-human's voice, and in the way his fingers dig a little into Fiann's chest. "Look, here they come now."

And they _are_, the mages and everyone heading down the hill and Fiann abandons the docks in favor of running up the hill to meet them. There is a general bustle at the docks as the parchment-mage (who is limping heavily after their day of revelry) speaks to the boat-human and then the knight, then looks at the mage with his hands behinds his back and sighs, "Anders. What are we going to do with you?"

"He killed four Templars," the knight who came with him says. "He should hang!"

"How many times do I have to tell you, that _wasn't me_—"

"Your guilt or innocence will be decided once we're back in the Tower," the parchment-mage says. "Ser Rylock, I'm sure you'll want to speak with Greagoir when we go back to the Tower. Kester, do the docks have any space where we might shelter for the night? A barn, or one of the warehouses?"

The boat-human gestures to one side. "There's a barn—well, sort of a barn, anyway—up that way a quarter mile or so. Farmholder who was using it up and died last spring. It'll do in a pinch, and this is definitely a pinch." As if agreeing, the wind gusts and tries to take the boat-human's hat. "You lot won't fit in the Princess, even if we stacked you like cordwood. I can show you over there. Best we get moving. Storm's coming in hard."

The first fat drops of rain patter down around them as they near the promised shelter. Before they are all inside, the pattering opens out into a roar, and lightning splits the sky. The boat-human leaves them with a promise that he will try to send men with food, and the mages pile wood together and build a fire just outside one end of the building they're in. It's big, and water comes through the roof and falls on their heads. One side's open, and sometimes the wind curls around the building and brings rain with it. Some of the mage-pups are crying, and some of the mages want to cry but won't let themselves. Fiann goes from person to person, licking faces and getting petted and doing her job, which is to make people happy. Well, as happy as she can.

The mage from the dock is sitting by himself, his hands tied to a post. Fiann goes over to him and puts her paw on his knee, carrying a short stick one of the people-pups gave her. "Hey, pup. Don't you have apprentices to lick?"

She wags her tail, tiredly. Did that. Time for resting now.

"Wish I could." He glances over to where the knight that he came with is talking to another knight. "Seven times I've escaped, pup, and I really thought that this time I was going to manage to make it stick. Instead, I'm probably going to hang for murders that darkspawn did. The Warden-General didn't even _thank_ me for saving his blighted life, just shoved me at Rylock and told her to get me out of his sight. He really ought to have that stick someone's put up his arse looked at."

Fiann eyes the mage's lap. He's sitting with his legs straight out in front of him, and his robe makes a nice hammock between them. She clambers into his lap, settling down with her chin on his thigh, putting her stick down for a moment. She wiggles to her back and looks up hopefully. Tummy rubs?

"Still don't have my hands free. Rylock's worried I'll use magic and escape again. Not far wrong, she is." He darts his gaze over at his knight. "Just between you and me, dog, this whole being brought back to the Tower by a beautiful Templar thing was a lot more fun when I was pretty sure they weren't going to kill me."

Fiann sighs. She likes this mage; his robe smells like pine sap and he is doing a funny wrinkly thing with his forehead that reminds her of Lorn. But he doesn't get along with his knight, like her knight is right now not getting along with his lady-mage. Fiann doesn't understand why, doesn't understand why these humans all raise their hackles at one another and growl. It likely has something to do with territory, Fiann thinks. Lorn has been telling her about territory, and how it works with people.

It's all very complicated and she is so tired. She falls asleep on the mage's lap (and he is now and forever will be the pine-mage; his name-scent is pine tar and fresh-split cedar) and the wind roars around the barn and through her head. She wakes later and goes to relieve herself a little bit away. When she returns, she finds her way into a pile of sleeping mage-pups and falls asleep again. She misses her knight, but she is sleeping safe and warm, and soon they will be reunited.

*****

_Jowan:_

Everything _hurt_.

The backlash from the Veil closing in the Harrowing Chamber had caught them all, thrown them down like a child's wooden soldiers. It was the Templar's cleansing, but a thousand times worse. At least he was alive to hurt, though how much longer that was going to last, he had no idea.

They still sat by the east window, all of them too exhausted to speak. Cullen had stripped off the glove on his right hand, and cradled it in his left. From what Jowan could see, it looked badly burned. He'd only seen what the Templar had done out of the corner of his eye, and it hadn't made much sense. Eventually, he might try and get Kathil to explain it, but for right now he kept his silence.

The Harrowing Chamber. _Strange._ He'd never had the chance to take the Harrowing. Looking back, he didn't know if it would have made much difference if they'd let him, instead of deciding to make him Tranquil. He had been too young, too much in love with Lily, too impulsive, too...everything. He raised his head to look at Kathil, who was sitting with Zevran behind her, her scarred face drawn with fatigue.

He was too tired for anger at her, even too tired for disappointment, and for the first time since he'd found her again he saw her plainly instead of through the lens of what he had hoped for her to be, needed her to be. A woman, bone-thin, dark circles under her eyes and a nasty scar distorting the corner of her eye and mouth. A mage who had demonstrated power that Jowan knew the Circle did not teach, who carried a sword instead of a staff. A Grey Warden who kept demons distracted while others undid the creature's work, who ordered around _Templars_ like she had every right to do so.

_You are not the only one who has...transgressed,_ her voice spoke in his memory. Jowan wondered what her crimes had been. Did she count Flemeth's murder among them?

The years they had known each other lay broken in pieces behind them, and neither of them were the people they had been. For the first time, he could see her as a stranger who carried histories of her own written in blood, and he could feel something nearly like sympathy.

He put his head back down on the low sill and felt his neck and shoulders protest violently at even that small motion. His hip and knee told him that the floor was hard and that the position he was in was uncomfortable, but the prospect of movement filled him with dread.

Kathil cleared her throat. "We should get up. Jowan, can you go to mouse shape?"

He didn't move, not even to look at her or to shake his head. "I'm not capable of lighting a lamp right now, much less anything more complicated."

"Me, neither. Well, I think we can put together something in our room for you. We'd better get downstairs, if we can. There might not be many Templars here at the moment, but I'd like to see if I can avoid having them see you again." Jowan heard her get to her feet, her armor making soft metallic whispers and grumbles. "Maker's Breath. I am not looking forward to the stairs."

"At least we go down and not up, no?" Zevran said. Jowan heard a note in his voice that had been missing since the night that Cullen had woken them all up with his attempt to murder Kathil, an edge of humor whisper-thin. "Come, then. This place is...inhospitable."

Jowan forced himself to sit up, then used the low windowsill as a boost to get to his feet. He stood wobbling for a moment, trying to decide if he were about to fall over. After a few heartbeats, he decided he was probably going to be able to stay on his feet. Lorn, too, was up, holding one front paw off the ground. "Lorn's hurt," Jowan said.

"I know." Kathil bent a bit. "Poor boy, it looks like that paw's swollen. I have poultices in my room. I didn't bring any up with me. Among _other_ things I overlooked. Come on, Cullen, get up."

The Templar looked up at them, squinting as if he couldn't quite see them. "Think I'll stay here," he mumbled. "A little while longer." He closed his eyes and set his head back against the stone. "You go on."

Kathil looked alarmed. "You have to come with us," she said, and her tone brooked no argument. "What happened to your hand?"

He opened his eyes, though Jowan wasn't sure if Cullen saw the mage or something else entirely. "It's cold, inside a dragon."

A thousand emotions flickered across Kathil's face, beginning with consternation and ending with determination. "_Maker_. I wish Wynne were here. Zev, Jowan, help me."

Together, they got the protesting man to his feet. They limped with great care across the Harrowing Chamber, and slowly descended the stairs. The Tower was so _empty_. No Templars wandered the halls; they must be in their own quarters, tending to their wounds. No mages walked around with their noses stuck in a book, no apprentices were up and looking for a cup of water. Just emptiness, and silence.

Jowan was surprised at just how wrong it felt. He'd never had any love for the Tower, but even in his worst memories of the place there had still been a sort of sense of camaraderie, of the Circle of Magi being more than just a bunch of people who had in common exactly one thing—a talent that scared the water out of normal people. It seemed wrong that the Tower was, right now, just a building. Just stones and mortar and fading memories.

_What is a prison, without inmates?_

They came to the guest quarters; together, they got Cullen into the big bed that was the centerpiece of the room. There was no question of returning him to the infirmary tonight. Kathil rummaged in a cupboard and brought out blankets, handing them to Jowan. "If you set up in the niche, even if someone comes into the room they won't see you right away." She grimaced. "And they'll probably be too distracted by Cullen being in with us to look around too much."

"Likely. With a few hours of sleep, I should be able to change back to a mouse." He rubbed his forehead; his ears were ringing, and the song of blood that he always heard was strangely muted. "Kathil...nothing back there made much sense."

"You did your job. That's all I can ask for." He shot her a look, and she looked calmly right back, not answering his implied question. "I'll keep Greagoir from inquiring too closely about what you're doing here, if I can. We are probably going to have a host of new problems in the morning. I suggest getting some sleep." She was unbraiding her hair. It was longer now than it had ever been when they were apprentices together, since she had set it on fire every year or so. _Maker, we were so young, and thought ourselves so wise._

He raised an eyebrow. "What sort of new problems?"

Zevran dropped one boot on the floor with a thump. "The sort that occur when the Circle cannot put its apprentices through the Harrowing, no?"

"Precisely." She turned away from Jowan, and stepped toward the bed. "Why is it that every time I solve a problem, several worse ones spring up in its place? We did what had to be done, but we did break the Harrowing Chamber."

"What was that charming phrase you used before? _Sod the sodding Chantry_, yes?" Zevran grinned. He'd just finished pulling off the last of his armor, and lay down in the bed next to Cullen. "Come to bed, my Warden. Let tomorrow's problems wait."

She blew out the lamp, and Jowan bedded down in the niche, curling up so that his feet didn't show beyond the bookcase. _At least I won't wake up to find Lily standing over me._

But she found him in his dreams. Watching, always watching, but her face was calm now. Just as if some measure of peace had been restored to her.

Even this was better than the darkness.

*****

_Kathil:_

The storm was still howling the next morning when hunger drove her from bed and to the kitchens, where she gathered up what was easy: farl from yesterday's baking, apples, salted beef, fruit tarts that had been intended for last night's supper. She gathered enough food to feed either an army or three Grey Wardens who had overextended themselves, a Mabari, and Zevran. She was wrapping it all up in a cloth when she heard the door open, and turned.

It was Carroll, out of armor, his hair rumpled and deep lines pressed into his face from his pillow. "You had the same idea I did," he said. He came to the sideboard and helped himself to a tart. "Looks like the lake won't be safe to cross until this afternoon," he mumbled around a bite. "You lot all right?"

"I...don't know," she said slowly. "Physically, I think so. I'm the first one up, so I don't know how Cullen is doing. How is everyone?"

"Nothing's broken that won't heal. Jeseth messed something up in his shoulder, we think, but once the mages get back someone should be able to fix him." Carroll took another bite, and swallowed. "We've all got bruises, of course. But we also have the morning off." The Templar grinned. "Greagoir told us that we should rest this morning. I think he maybe forgot about you, because he didn't mention a thing about me setting up a rotation on your door."

If there was anything that Kathil was sure of, it was that Greagoir was not going to just _forget_ about her. _I should be so lucky._ It was likely that he was simply trying to give her enough space to get Jowan out or hidden away so he didn't have to think too much about why a supposedly dead blood mage was alive enough to do magic. It was as much of a _thank you_ as she was ever likely to get from him.

_The Templars should be our fathers, our brothers, our sons._ Her own words from months ago came back to her, her optimistically impassioned speech to the Wardens. Faced with the reality of the Tower, it all fell apart into bright shreds of what might have once resembled hope.

She took that thought back with her to the guest room along with breakfast. That she felt wrung out, thin, almost transparent, she attributed to hunger and the aftereffects of using too much magic yesterday. Any other explanation, she refused to even begin to admit.

At least, not consciously. Her shoulders were tightly knotted, and there was a twinge in her belly that she tried very hard not to think about. _What if—_

No. She closed off the thought and opened the door to the guest room. "Breakfast!" she called, too loudly, too cheerfully.

Lorn came to her, still limping on that one injured foot, wagging. Zevran was sitting up in the bed, shirtless, scratching at one of the scars on his chest. Jowan peered around the bookcase, then stepped out. Kathil glanced at Cullen, then dropped down to one knee and opened the cloth. Lorn got the joint of meat that she'd snagged from the cold-chest. She handed out the rest; Jowan ate like he hadn't seen food in weeks. Zevran sat cross-legged on the bed with some of the farl, getting crumbs all over the blankets. And Cullen...didn't move.

She raised an eyebrow at Zevran, then shot a look at Cullen. "Alive, but I couldn't wake him," the assassin said. "Eat, my Warden. A stiff breeze would blow you over at this moment."

She took a triangular piece of farl and a good amount of the salted beef and sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't really feel like eating, but her stomach was grumbling and she knew from long and painful experience that if she didn't eat now, she would regret it for days to come. The farl was good, as was the meat, and she discovered her appetite soon enough. "I'll go with you back to the storage room," she told Jowan. "The Templars are taking the morning off."

"When do you think we'll leave the Tower?" Jowan asked.

"Depends." She glanced at Cullen's still form. "I thought he was doing better. Speaking of, Zevran, let me have a look at your arm." Zevran came over to her, and she unwrapped the bandage on his arm. The poultice had done its work, and the wound was closed though by no means entirely healed. She reached for her power, and frowned; for a long moment, nothing happened. Then her power responded, but sluggishly, as if it had been asleep and was only reluctantly stirring itself to her summons.

She had simply overextended herself, that was all. It had happened before. Magic took a toll on the mage's body, and she'd done more spellcasting yesterday afternoon than she had in a while. Under her hand, the wound knitted together, and she felt the flesh becoming whole once more. The healing that Lorn needed on his paw was more complicated. Several of the small bones that supported his weight had cracked, and the muscle around the bones was swollen. She couldn't fix it all right now, but she could ease the bones back into perfect alignment and do preliminary healing on the breaks. "You have to stay off of it today," she told him. "I'd like to get you down to the first floor, so you can have outside breaks without going up and down the stairs."

Lorn licked her hand. Could they bring the dust-knight downstairs too? Fiann was not here to guard her knight, and he was still broken.

"Maybe." _Maker. Cullen._ She ruffled Lorn's ears and rose, going to the side of the bed that her Templar lay curled on. A hand on his wrist told her that his pulse was slow but strong. He'd lost weight in the last couple of weeks, and the lyrium withdrawal had left his skin gray-tinged and his face lined. To all appearances, he was deeply asleep. She carefully extended just a little magic into his body, one of the minor diagnostic spells that were among the things Wynne had taught her.

It told her something that made no sense. Cullen, according to the spell, had nothing wrong with him at all, except for the burn on his right hand.

He was simply worn to the edge of endurance. _Tired._ Exactly as if he had not slept for weeks. Except that he had been doing little _but _sleeping since he had gotten to the Tower; part of the lyrium withdrawal protocol that Irving was testing on him involved keeping him in a drugged sleep and force-feeding him potions made of stuff that had some sort of affinity for the metal. Pull the last of the lyrium out and support the body's efforts to repair itself while keeping the mind shut down in an effort to control the hallucinations and seizures, was the protocol as Kathil understood it.

She rubbed her knuckles over her mouth and stepped away, feeling her teeth dig into the inside of her lip. _Or do you think you were dreaming, oathbound? The sweet wife, the adorable children? _The demon's words came back to her now. Kathil had seen how Cullen had looked at the demon, when it had changed into the form of a girl-child. There had been a moment of naked yearning, then his expression had closed as he remembered who was speaking. The despair demon had influenced Cullen from far away, powered by the life of an apprentice—possibly several lives, if she was not mistaken.

There was every possibility that it had trapped his mind in its own corner of the Fade, kept him from truly dreaming. That was what had happened to Niall, when he had been trapped in the Fade; locked in a demon's dream, his body had reacted exactly as if he had been awake for those weeks. The dreaming peoples—humans and elves—seemed to rely on those dreams to renew their bodies. When she had killed the sloth demon and freed his soul, his body had failed completely.

_What was she showing you, Cullen?_

Kathil thought she might know.

"Long face, little bird," Zevran said, breaking her ruminations.

"Hm? Ah." She shook her head. "Cullen is fine, as much as he can be. The burn on his hand needs tending. A poultice for now. If you could do that while I take Jowan back? I think it's a bad idea for me to touch Cullen right now. Putting a poultice on his hand is going to hurt."

She saw the questions in his eyes, and ignored them. After a moment, Zevran nodded.

Jowan followed her out of the room and down the hall. They encountered no Templars, thankfully, and made it to the storage room without incident. "There you go," she told him.

He gave her a long look. "Do you want me to, er…check on you?" he asked. He shifted from foot to foot.

As if on cue, there was a twinge in her belly. Kathil took a deep breath. "Please. And I have the rune you asked me to get."

Jowan stepped over to her, and tension sang in her. "I honestly don't know what I'm going to find," he told her. "You were…well, as far as I could tell, when Cullen pulled you out of the Fade you were frozen solid. That's how he got that burn on his hand, from touching you."

"I'd rather know than wonder." She remembered the body of the dragon surrounding her with a cold so deep that she had immediately forgotten what it was like to be warm. She had thought it had been a figment of her imagination.

Evidently not.

Jowan pressed a hand against the lower part of her belly, and she bit back resentment at his presence so close, like the friend he had once been to her. The blood mage frowned. "Well, I think all is well for the moment." He stepped back. "The taint is very close to overwhelming your body's defenses, though. I need that rune."

She dug into her pocket and handed the heavy metal round to him. The design on its surface shimmered slightly with lyrium folded into harmlessness. "I need a drop or two of your blood," he told her.

Two weeks ago, she would have refused. Now, she pulled her little knife and nicked her thumb. Jowan held out the rune; she smeared her blood across it. He closed his fingers around it, caging it.

One hand on her shoulder, one tightly wrapped around the rune, Jowan closed his eyes and began to cast the spell. A tingling mantle fell over her shoulders, then constricted to surround something deep in her body. Distantly, she heard wind keening around the Tower, scraping against the protesting stones.

Jowan finished the spell, the strange, twisty words falling into silence. He handed her the rune. The blood was gone, sunk into the lines of lyrium. "Try to wear it somewhere it's touching your skin," he told her. "It'll make the spell last longer."

The tingling was gone now, and she closed her hand around the metal. It was warm from Jowan's hand, though that warmth was quickly extinguished by her own chill. _When did I get to be so cold?_

"I hope to leave the Tower soon," she said. "I—have to go now."

She didn't pause to hear anything that Jowan said in return, nearly running out of the room. Once she hit the hallway, she _was_ running. Fleeing. _Anywhere but here—_

Up the stairs, and up.

There was stone cold around her, wrapped around her, suffocating. The world blurred. Arched doorways, stonework lattices, stairs and more stairs, narrow windows, the air so _difficult _to breathe…

_Thunk._

"Ow," she muttered, and she was sitting on a staircase and that had been her head hitting the wall. Her breath was coming ragged to her, and she forced her lungs to inflate, deflate, breath in and out, in and out—_live_, she ordered herself, _I am alive and this will not change now_—

The edge of the rune round was biting into her fingers where she clutched it. _What am I doing?_

She'd told Leliana once that she was not a good person. But she hadn't told her friend the half of it. The years she'd been gone, driven to the old roads by something she could not name, the way her soul seemed to be somehow bent out of shape, no longer fitted to her body like a sword in a sheath—she'd barely scratched the surface.

Kathil knew without opening her eyes that she had come to the place where she used to meet Cullen. The world was settling down around her. _What am I doing?_ That question again. _Running away. As usual._

No.

The Circle laid obedience into mages like tiles in a floor. Templars were taught to never trust a mage. She had taken Cullen, and by the absent Maker she had _bent_ him to her liking. It wasn't just their…relationship, such as it was. It was the way she had worked with him to modify his abilities, how she had made very sure that she was his _commander_ as well as his lover. It was not an equal partnership.

It was never meant to be.

_I have done this, and the consequences are mine to bear._

Mages faced three fates, always. Circle mages faced becoming enchanters, becoming Tranquil, dying. Apostates faced life as a hedge witch, the life of a mercenary, and once more death.

Kathil faced becoming whatever became of female Grey Wardens after their Calling, becoming one of the Unwilling trapped in the Fade, or meeting her end at the blade of a man she loved.

Death, it seemed, was the one constant.

_How sick am I, to love the blade that might take my life?_

And now, this. She pressed one hand to her belly. She had been acting on pure instinct, protecting the life that she carried within her. But if she _thought_ about it—Maker's _Balls_, she had no idea what she was doing. _I don't know how to be anyone's mother._ And, well, she had a date with the Deep Roads in twenty-five years at the latest, and she honestly didn't think she was going to make it that long.

It had seemed like plenty of time, when she'd first been told about it. Now, it seemed like barely any time at all.

_Calm down._

Her breath was coming more easily to her, her chest easing. Jowan had mentioned that she had been apparently frozen solid when she'd been pulled out of the Fade; cold enough to burn Cullen through his glove. She'd always had an affinity for ice and lightning. How long had it been since she'd done any more than the simplest of fire spells? Months. Perhaps years.

How much of that was her own preference, and how much was the doing of the shadow of Urthemiel?

Difficult to say, if not impossible. She propped her elbows on her knees and put her head into her hands, digging her fingers into her temples. Kathil felt raw, and that infernal wind was _not_ helping. _The Tower is getting to me. I don't usually fall apart nearly this easily._

Then again, she didn't often discover that she was turning into…something. Though she had suspected.

Kathil rubbed her dry eyes and raised her head. The shadows on this staircase were more or less constant, the same at noon as midnight, lit by dim magelights. She could almost feel the ghost of Cullen's presence—a different Cullen, the fifteen-year-old Templar trainee recently torn away from everything he'd ever known.

She still couldn't truly bring herself to regret what she'd done to him. She needed him; it was that simple, and that complicated. He was a part of her, as much as Zevran was. As much as Jowan was, though there was not a living soul she would admit that to except _maybe_ Leliana.

A chuckle tumbled out of her throat, surprising her. Leliana would take one look at her and tell her she was being silly, that the Maker had invented love in all its forms. There were days that Kathil envied Leliana her faith. It was a mistake to think of that faith as a simple thing; it was as simple as the woman herself, which was not much by a long shot. But it _was_ strong, the beating heart of her.

Kathil thought she could do worse than to pretend to be Leliana once in a while.

She shoved herself to her feet and started down the stairs.

*****

_Zevran:_

The mages and Templars came back to the Tower just before sunset that day, crossing the lake the moment the water was calm enough.

And they brought back a pair that hadn't gone out with them. The Templar was a tall woman with dark hair and a severe beauty to her. ("They _make_ female Templars?" he'd asked Kathil, muttering under his breath as they stood in the entrance hall. She murmured something back about _tradition_ and _not allowed to serve at the Tower_ and _I'll tell you about it—just as soon as I figure it out._) The mage had his hands secured behind his back and a look on his face that Zevran had seen before. Defiance in the face of the knowledge of death approaching.

And he saw the look on Kathil's face. Recognition, and a sort of exhausted acceptance.

The Templar was formidable but she was _also_ quite…loud. The moment she saw Greagoir, she began to shout about this mage (Anders? Was that right?) and how he had killed a bunch of Templars and how he needed to hang _this instant_.

And it was about then that he began to expect Kathil to do something, to _intervene_. Because that was what she _did_.

But she was turning, brushing her hand over the top of Lorn's head. And she was walking away.

The apostate—escapee, perhaps?—was looking between the shouting Templar and the silent Knight-Commander. He paid no attention to the pale-haired woman with the dog at her side who was now leaving the entrance hall.

He caught up with her by the first door to the apprentice dormitory. "One would think you would have a certain amount of sympathy for the plight of the apostate," he said, keeping his voice neutral.

"Oh, I do." She pursed her lips slightly. "He'd make a good Grey Warden. I can see it in him. But I can't save everyone, Zev. Anders chose his death years ago."

"You know him, then?"

"A bit. He's a few years older than me." They were passing through the library now. "He was a late arrival—I think he was twelve or thirteen or so—and they put him through his Harrowing young. He passed, and immediately started running away from the Tower." She stopped at one of the bookcases, running a finger over the spines of books. Lorn sniffed the shelf of books nearest the floor with interest. "The last time, they threw him into a cell in the basement and left him to rot for a year, I heard. Poetry or history?"

Zevran blinked. "What?"

"Poetry, I think." The hand that pulled a slim volume out from between two thicker ones was trembling a little. "They'll hang him, or run him through, or maybe cut off his head. Either way, I think Anders just ran out of luck."

He eyed her. _Something is wrong._ It made his fingers itch for the reassurance of a dagger hilt. Then he saw the twist at the scarred corner of her mouth deepen, and he relaxed just a little. "You have something up your sleeve, and not just your arm," he said.

"Do I?" Nothing but innocence and the Fade in her eyes. "I suppose it is _possible_." She started walking again. Lorn looked up and then abandoned the books he had pulled out in order to follow them. "The thing about Anders is that if you offer him an inch of rope, he'll take the whole length. If he survives the next few hours…" She shook her head. "Andraste's little ankles, I wish Cullen were well so we could _leave_."

Their Templar had woken briefly, long enough to bolt down enough food for three meals for a normal person. Then he had fallen back into that deep sleep. Though he would never say it aloud, Zevran thought that perhaps this was not entirely a bad thing. Yesterday's events had extracted a price from them all, and he rather thought Kathil would prefer to defer the explanation of what precisely had happened in the Harrowing Chamber.

_She keeps secrets,_ Rinna's voice whispered in his mind.

Zevran took his lover's arm, and shut Rinna away with the rest of his ghosts.

* * *

_Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover,  
dark curtains drawn by the passage of time? _

_—Vienna Teng, "Recessional"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O HAI ANDERS.
> 
> To make it clear what's going on timeline-wise: the Awakening expansion is in the process of happening in the background, with some modifications to the early bits to make this being three years post-Blight make sense. Laurens, currently Warden-General/Warden-Commander (the two roles are slightly different), made the decision to send Anders back to the Circle rather than have him take the Joining (which, if I recall, is an option). Please don't ask me how I'm going to reconcile some of the other setting-handwaving that Bioware did in Awakenings, because I don't know. (Banns swearing allegiance to arls! Grey Wardens holding titles! Cats sleeping with dogs! Total chaos!) However, female Templars are awesome, and I am keeping them. *hugs Ser Rylock*
> 
> Also, Fiann owes pretty much all of her personality to my little red dog, who really does believe that licking faces cures everything.


	10. The Unknown Map

_How I love you is not about  
the known map of holding you_

_how I love you is about_   
_the unknown map of letting you go._

_\--k.m., from "thirteen truths about Gemma"_

_   
_

* * *

_  
_

_Cullen:_

Days slipped by him, passing through his hands like water.

The bright place that he had retreated to so many times was gone entirely. He slept, woke briefly, slept again; when he was awake he felt as fragile as old glass. The Tower stuttered, stopped, started again, settled into something rather like peace. Mages and Templars came and went from the infirmary. His hand hurt, and then no longer hurt.

Cullen dreamed.

The bright place where he had spent several lifetimes was gone entirely, but he still dreamed about his daughter. She changed shape and appearance, but he always knew her--red curls, pale gold hair, hazel eyes, green eyes, brown. Two years old with her thumb in her mouth, five and a frog in her cupped hands, ten with mud in her hair and dripping from her ear, sixteen and in mage robes, pacing, kicking stone walls. He dreamed other things, things that made no sense, kittens stalking the halls of the Tower and turning into butterflies. Fiann was there when he woke, usually, and once or twice Zevran was as well.

There were other mages, too, giving him things to drink and eat when he woke, fussing as little as possible, keeping their distance. No Kathil.

Something was wrong about that, but he couldn't remember what it was.

How long had it been? Five days? Ten?

He dreamed about demons. Inhuman beauty and light violet skin. Lined face and words that brought despair. Hulking mass and a mouth barely visible for crenellations of flesh and bone. What he was not supposed to have; what he could never have; a man he no longer was. All things that battered at his mind, his heart, and he slept and dreamed his way through them.

Ten days? Fifteen? Thirty?

Was he still dreaming?

A hard wooden chair edge was digging into the backs of his legs. He looked around, uncomprehending. Office. Small. Worn and battered desk, similarly battered books. Crossbow leaning casually against the wall. A word came to mind: _Greagoir_. A name.

Another word. _Father._

Where had he learned that? A mage sitting against a plain wooden door, her knees pulled up to her chest. _Why can't I be rid of you?_

Did he want to be?

Thirty days? Two months? Three years?

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. Greagoir's chair was empty. He didn't spend much time in here, and there was--had he heard there was to be an execution?

Behind him, the door opened. "Cullen?" asked a familiar voice. "What are you doing in here?"

Cullen raised his head. Greagoir shut the door behind him and stepped around the desk to his own side, settling into the chair. "I'm not sure," Cullen said. His voice was rough, as if he hadn't used it for a long time. "I--woke. And I'm here."

"Well. How are you feeling?"

How _was_ he feeling? He considered the question. "Does it make any sense that I'm not sure?" he hazarded. Memory was a strange thing, it slipped and slid and disappeared into cracks in the floor. "How long have I been here? In the Tower?"

"Total? About twenty-five days since you came here. Irving says that you're through the worst of the withdrawal." Greagoir was sitting back in his choir, looking at Cullen steadily. "Do you remember the letter I sent you?"

Letter? The smell of paper, the feel of it in his hand, black marks, old language. "Yes!" he blurted, surprised, then remembered to modulate his voice. Warm afternoon, the press of someone else's foot against his own. Touchpoint. A place and a time, secured to the shifting walls of his memory. "You sent me a copy of an old text, about mages and Templars partnering. I...wasn't sure what to think." Other things were settling into place, now. That had been Denerim. Before, or just after? "It sounded like Templars being assigned to personally guard mages isn't without precedent."

"Precedent." The corner of Greagoir's mouth twitched. "That is one way to say it. It was once how things were done from Tevinter to the Circle Tower, anywhere that Templars and mages both existed. Unfortunately, the arrangement was rife with abuse. Templars...taking advantage of mages, and vice versa. The connection that exists between us and our mage counterparts is a strong one, and it all too easily goes bad. Our current arrangement in the Tower was created to prevent those abuses, to provide a strong structure for both us and the mages. To allow us to guard the mages, while keeping ourselves separate from them."

_Cullen is my Templar._

"That has problems too, of course," Greagoir continued. "And I do nod to the old ways when choosing Templars for Harrowings. Each Templar must learn that no matter what, their first duty is to the Chantry and the Maker, and to those we protect by keeping the mages safely away from those they would hurt." There was just the ghost of a frown on Greagoir's lips. "Some learn the lesson too well. Others...not at all."

_Like me._ Some of that old shame was surfacing in Cullen, the feeling that no matter what he did, it would not be enough, could never be enough. "True," he said, looking away. Why was he even here? "I should go."

"One thing before you do," Greagoir said. "Qualities that make for a good Templar make for a bad Grey Warden, and a good Warden is not necessarily a good Templar. Remember that, Cullen."

There were so many questions in Cullen's mind: _Do you know about me? Are you saying I'm a bad Templar? What are you trying to tell me?_ But what came out was, "Was there an execution? I heard--one of the mages who ran away--"

"Anders." The world was growled. "He has some ridiculous song and dance about talking darkspawn. Your commander has requested that we stay his execution until she gets more information out of him, and from Vigil's Keep. She claims that if what Anders says is true, she may need someone who has seen these darkspawn. At least she hasn't tried to conscript him yet."

Cullen remembered the mage, a little; mostly, he remembered a voice in a cell in the basement, calling out, trying to engage passersby in conversation. It never worked, since the Templars were wise to his ways and the mages were forbidden from the basement. He was surprised that Kathil hadn't tried to conscript him. Anders seemed like her kind of mage, a restlessness too vivid to properly confine to the Tower.

He got to his feet, feeling a little wobbly. "If there's one thing she knows, it's killing darkspawn," he said. That, at least, was a safe enough assertion.

"It is." Greagoir's gaze strayed towards something on his side of the battered desk. "That is what Grey Wardens are for. It is time to wake up, Cullen. There is a world waiting out there for you."

_Time to wake up._

He remembered every step he took away from Greagoir's office, the world stabilizing around him. Every step stitched this moment to the next and to the next, fixing him in time and place. Twenty-five days. Time to wake up.

This, then, was what he knew, what he had to go on.

It was going to have to be enough.

*****

_Zevran:_

He was, if he had to admit it, just _slightly_ bored.

It was not that the company was not fine; he taught the Templars to play Seven Dragons and the mages to dice (a couple of the apprentices took it upon themselves to learn how to cheat on the rolls, which he approved of), and meals were, for the Tower, relatively convivial. He had not found his previous tour in the Tower boring, but that had been because he had expected to be there for several years. It was this in-between state, this forced pause in their travels, that drove him ever so slightly mad. And other things, none of which bore too much thought.

But Cullen was on the mend, Zevran had seen that for himself. They should be on their way soon. Though _where_ they would be going was a matter of some mystery. There had been furious letter-writing, pacing waiting, and no replies from Amaranthine. The lanky mage who had been dragged back to the Tower from there had mentioned darkspawn who spoke, and who had tried to kill Warden-General Laurens.

It was all quite baffling, as was Kathil's absolute insistence that they were _not_ going anywhere near Amaranthine until the spring. This was not quite the Warden he knew; usually, she would have been spoiling to charge north and see what the situation was for herself. Academic curiosity coupled with a professional interest in seeing darkspawn dead generally made her very interested in discovering what was behind any variance in the creatures' behavior.

Instead, she was poring over maps of the eastern part of Orlais, the southern part of the Free Marches, restlessly going over them as if she thought that one more look might reveal a secret she had not yet seen. "I have to send my notes off to Dagna before the snow flies," she'd said, when he asked. "But I've barely _found_ anything, much less the lyrium trade route she suspects existed once. I might have straightened out the timeline of the Exalted Marches, but that doesn't help."

Books, maps, all those things she used to shield herself from pain. He knew her. Like any target, the secret was to wait her out.

Zevran returned that night from a card game that had run quite late, expecting to find his Warden in their bed, or at the very least working at the desk with Lorn at her feet. Neither mage nor Mabari were present, which was worrying. He had noted the absence of a guard on the door, but had thought it was merely a change of shift.

Well, the Tower was not that large, was it? He would go look for her.

Her table in the library was vacant, the window seat on the Senior Enchanter floor where she would often read was empty and dark. The Templar floor was silent but for the snores of Mabari in their makeshift kennel. The storerooms were locked. The Tower, to all evidence, slept the sleep of the just. Even the infirmary, where Cullen still stayed, was quiet. (Thankfully. He did not look forward to having to intervene should Cullen once again decide that all mages must die.)

But light spilled from beneath the mages' kitchen door when he retreated to the first floor, and opening the door revealed his Warden seated on the edge of the central table, working her way through a pair of tarts. Lorn and Jeseth were sitting under the bench, looking up at her with hope in their eyes. Coals in the hearth cast a sullen glow over the room. "Ah, and is that not such a sight?" Zevran smiled at her and let the door close behind him. "I might have known I would find you here."

"Mmm. I got hungry," she said after she swallowed. "How did your game go?"

"I--what is that charming phrase? Ah, yes--beat the braes off of them. Though I think good Ser Oillin is learning how to count cards."

Kathil snorted. "Counting cards isn't cheating, you know. Some of us can't help keeping track of what's been played." She took another bite of her tart, then broke the remainder in half and gave a bite to each to the overjoyed warhounds. "Irving mentioned that Cullen is just about as well as he can get, and anything more he needs I should be able to put together. So we can leave in a few days."

"Ah, there's a question," Zevran said. He hoisted himself onto the table next to her, setting a foot on the bench. "Leave, but where to? Not Amaranthine, and not Redcliffe if your grumbling the other day was anything to go by."

"Teagan will have to wait for his dressing-down from me for a bit," she said. "East, to the Brecilian Forest. There are places there where we can shelter for the winter."

He raised an eyebrow. "Because you have such very fond memories of the place? Because you enjoy being treated with disdain by the Dalish?"

Rather than answer, she took another bite of tart. Her eyes darted briefly towards the door. "Because the forest is very good at keeping out those it doesn't want there. We're going to be racing winter, but with a little luck we won't get stranded in the Southron Hills or, Maker forbid, Lothering." He gave her a questioning look, and she shook her head. She was nearly as paranoid as a Crow, especially within the Tower. Always convinced that there were listeners.

Right or wrong, he let it be. "So, where is your ever so diligent guard?"

"Had a touchy stomach and went to get one of his fellows to relieve him." Dark eyes narrowed at the corners, black in the dim. "Nothing _whatsoever_ to do with the cup of water I got for him earlier."

"Bad habits," he said, chiding perhaps just a little. "I thought we had agreed to leave the poisons to me?"

She sniffed. "It was Mathias. I am reasonably sure he resents the beating I gave him." She took another bite, and mumbled around the food, "I get tired of being looked at like I'm an insect sometimes."

Zevran shrugged, and leaned into her a little. "A few more days and we will be gone, yes? Besides, you did stand it for...how long, again?"

"Fifteen years, or thereabouts. I just...am more used to the outside world, now."

That was not what she had originally planned to say. But there was no digging what she _had_ meant to say out of her, not tonight. Instead, he insinuated an arm around her; she offered him a bite of tart. It was filled with apples, and good as far as Fereldan food went. One of these days, he was going to have to pry her out of this country, and take her somewhere that they could have a proper meal. While he chewed, she made short work of the rest, then leaned against him. The quiet of the Tower surrounded them, and the light from the hearth made deep shadows pool beneath tables and shelves. Zevran could almost believe they were alone, the Tower deserted.

Almost.

Her body was tense against his. "I will be glad to leave," he said, and felt her relax just slightly. "We have things to do, people to meet, darkspawn to kill. Speaking of, have you gotten anything more out of that Anders fellow?"

"Not much." She rubbed her hands on her rough trousers. "I think Laurens has his work cut out for him. Pity that the man doesn't seem to think much of mages. Anders would have been--will be--an asset, if what he has said is at all true."

Zevran quirked the corner of his mouth. "You're going to conscript him."

"Maybe." Kathil curled the fingers of one hand into the cloth of her trousers. Seeing that, he slid his fingers beneath hers, intertwining his warm fingers with her cool ones. "Much depends on his actions, and I won't be able to until the spring." She closed her mouth and shook her head, anything else she might say kept tightly behind her teeth.

There was simply too much she would not talk about at the moment. He hopped down from the table, pulling her after him. "To bed with the two of us, then."

Lorn got to his feet, cocking his head. Kathil pulled Zevran close. Her breath tickled along his neck, and he felt her lips touch his skin just briefly. "Trust me just a little while longer," she said, so low that even in that nearly silent room he could barely hear her.

"Always," he said. _Always, and always._ He was hers, without reservation, and she was his. The doubts that chewed at the corners of his mind could not change that. He kissed her hair and then led her back to the room they would share for a few more nights, warhound following.

The darkness of the Tower closed in around them as they held each other. It felt almost like a benediction.

*****

_Kathil:_

Her soft shoes scuffed gently on the stairs as she descended.

She'd have to switch back to boots in a bit, once they were out of the Tower; the pretty slippers were made of thin, embroidered leather that was simply not up to the rigors of Fereldan roads. It would be weeks, if not months, before she had a chance to wear them once more. Leliana had insisted she buy a pair for herself in Denerim, seeing how Kathil had eyed the sample pair that the cobbler had on his table. She wished the bard were with them. Her cheery presence and usually-sensible advice would likely make this all much easier.

Not to mention that _she_ wouldn't have had nearly as much trouble getting obtaining one of the keys to the basement cells.

But she had the key in her pocket, and she'd slipped her leash one last time. Carroll had likely been relieved to be sent on a chase after a nonexistent book called _Searching for the Dahu_. It was near shift change, and she would have a good quarter hour in the basement if she needed it. The cells were down past the door to the phylactery chamber, around several twists and turns. The guard posts were all vacant, and the basement was silent.

Mostly.

Low voices echoed down the hall as she approached. _ Is that--? _ She ducked into a doorway and whispered a quick spell into the palm of her cupped hand. The air shivered around her once and a dreamlike feeling stole over her as the spell she called merely the unseeing took hold. The spell was designed to last only heartbeats, but if she stood very still it might be stretched out into a few minutes. The rough voice was Irving--she would know it anywhere, sleeping or waking. He was speaking to Anders, it sounded like.

"...and if you are lying to me, young man--"

"I'm _not_." That was Anders' sigh, all right. "Look, I admit that I didn't exactly do much to help the Templars against the darkspawn attack, but I'd just finished getting told that they would put a sword through me if I did so much as light a lamp. And if there's one thing I know about Templars, is that they have no sense of humor. I think they remove it when they take their vows. Looks like they do the same thing to Grey Wardens."

"Oh, I think that varies. I did meet the King when he was just a Warden. He seemed to have come through with humor intact." Kathil peeked past the doorframe. Irving was standing in the center of the hall, his arms folded. _Andraste's frilly smalls, Irving, finish up and get out of here!_ She had so little time left in the Tower.

Anders snorted. "Couldn't prove it by that Orlesian fellow. I can't believe he conscripted the drunk dwarf and not me. Even if the fellow's some sort of military commander, we actually had to interrupt him having an argument with a support beam at one point."

"Perhaps he didn't want to deal with having an apostate on his hands." Irving sighed. "So there was no news of Petra and the rest?"

"Not a whisper. You'd think people in Amaranthine would have talked about a bunch of mages and Templars showing up. If they're there, they're keeping a low profile."

"So low that they haven't sent a message in two months," Irving said. Kathil set her back against the door and gritted her teeth, wondering why on Thedas nobody had ever come up with spells for situations like these. Something like _Major Shoo_ or _Virulent Must-Be-Somewhere-Else_.

Actually, that last had possibilities...

Mulling that over, she nearly missed the last quiet exchange between the First Enchanter and the apostate, Anders protesting that he really didn't _disagree_ with the Chantry on anything except their insistence that mages must be deprived of their freedom. "Well, that and the idea that I'm going to be killed for something I didn't do."

The First Enchanter's voice went grim. "You've done plenty, Anders. This was your seventh escape attempt--"

"Seventh _escape_, never mind attempt, thank you. Just because I was brought back--"

Kathil could well imagine the glare that cut off Anders as he was speaking. "And I _cannot_ continue to ward you from the consequences of your actions. You will live or die on your own merits, young man. I can help you no more."

Then, footsteps walking towards her. Kathil held her breath and flattened herself against the door, praying that the spell would hold. Irving limped heavily past her and down the hall without even glancing her direction. She still breathed very shallowly until he was gone.

When he was around the corner and away, she let go of the unseeing, feeling the guttering magic slip off of her and vanish. Then she stepped out of the doorway, moving quietly towards Anders' cell. She stopped in front of the barred door, peering through.

The apostate was sitting at a small table, and he blinked at her. "My day for visitors, it seems. Warden."

"You know me, Anders," she said. "Remember, I was the one who kept setting my hair on fire? Look, I have to leave. I just wanted to bring you these." She held a small bag out, pushing it through the bars.

Anders eyes narrowed, but he got up and took the bag from her. "What is it?"

"A gift." Kathil felt a small smile curve her lips. "If you can manage it, come to Amaranthine in the late spring."

He touched the gold ring he wore in one ear, and quirked the corner of his mouth upward. "Always did say Grey Wardens were a strange lot."

"I'm not here as a Warden." She glanced over her shoulder. "I'm here as a mage who agrees with you. You might deserve the services of the Hero of Ferelden, Anders, but today you get a second-rate pickpocket. Maybe third-rate. I'm really not very good at it at all. Anyway, there are enough silvers in there to keep you out of trouble for a few months. Try to keep your head down." She heard a door bang open somewhere in the basement. "I have to go. Maker guide you." Then she was running, away from the very surprised-looking mage, towards the stairs, and freedom.

There were few enough people to see them off. Irving was there, and Carroll was going to go with them as far as the docks. Kathil leaned against a pillar and pulled on her boots. The poor things had seen better days; the soles were thin and the leather cracked. _Maybe I'll get a chance to replace them._ They were going to have to stop somewhere and pick up supplies anyway. New boots might be a necessity, if the rest of the autumn went as she thought it might.

In her pocket, Jowan stirred. She patted the pocket gently and murmured, "Not yet." Then she yanked her laces tighter and bound them down. What had happened to the boots she had worn during the war? They had been beautifully inscribed, she remembered. Elven work, and with more than a little magic bound into the seams.

_They're probably at Soldier's Peak with everything else I've misplaced._ She'd kept the armor and Spellweaver; everything else she'd dropped off at the storeroom she'd claimed for her own at the old fortress. She thought, at least. Her memories of leaving Denerim were...not what they should be.

The same might be said for the rest of her.

She straightened, feeling her shoulders stiffen. Cullen was shouldering his pack; Zevran had his on already and was waiting by the door, arms crossed. Fiann bounced around, overjoyed that they were _going_ somewhere. She felt a brushing touch at her hip and put her hand down on the reassuring solidity of Lorn's back. "Ready," she said, and pulled her pack on. She had Jowan's pack as well; if anyone present thought it was unusual that she had two, they said nothing. "Kester is probably waiting for us. Irving, thank you for your hospitality."

The older mage inclined his head towards her. "Warden. Write with any news you have of the mages and Templars who went to Amaranthine."

He _was_ worried about them. "I will," she said. "And--"

The words died on her lips as she caught a glimpse of movement by the doors that led into the Tower proper. It was Greagoir. Even after being gone from the Tower for years, the unexpected presence of the Knight Commander was enough to make her stomach twist. She took a quick breath in, and stepped toward the open door.

Greagoir did not speak, simply stood by one of the alcoves and watched them gather in a knot by the door, watched the Templars make a show of unlocking and opening the portal to the outside. Was he glad to see them go? She couldn't tell. She nodded to him, but the Knight Commander didn't respond. Instead, he was looking at Cullen as the doors swung open wide enough to let them out.

The light that streamed in through the opened doors lit up the entrance hall, and Kathil glimpsed something she had not seen before. Two things.

One, that Shaw stood where there had only been shadows before, in an alcove in the hall. He was alone, with no dogs around him, and his expressionless eyes just looked at them, taking them in. Two, that he held in his hands a book with a torn cover, and a sheaf of papers. The book was one that Kathil had seen before; it was one of the books on blood magic that Jowan had obtained in the Tower. She'd seen it several times in the last month as she visited and talked with Jowan.

The pages, then, would be notes in Jowan's handwriting, likely about the spell that he was using to keep the taint in Kathil from killing the child she carried.

_The Tranquil are everywhere, unseen, unremarked, regarded as mobile furniture. They see everything. They know all that passes in the Tower, even before the Templars know it._

Then Shaw turned away and walked through the doors into the Tower proper, taking the evidence that might damn both Kathil and Jowan with him. She could only watch him go, knowing that to make a fuss would only bring doom down on her head more quickly. What Shaw would do with the books and papers, she could not guess.

The rest were waiting for her, and she steeled herself and stepped out into the sunshine, leaving the Tower behind.

*****

_Cullen:_

The autumn sun was thin and sharp as a knife, warning of winter ahead.

Kester was using the small boat today, and brought them over in two trips--Kathil and Lorn in the first trip, himself and Zevran and Fiann in the second. It was so strange to be out of the Tower; the whole world felt raw and new, the slip of water by the hull a revelation, the feeling of the wind through his hair some sort of strange blessing. Cullen felt--awake. Awake was a good word for it. As if the inside of his soul had been scraped out, leaving him with a strange sense of cautious alertness and not much else. It occurred to him, as Kester tied the boat to the dock on the shore, that he did not even know where they were going.

_I could have stayed in the Tower. They might need me there--_

No. He was a Grey Warden. And like it or not, he was Kathil's Templar. What _else_ he might be to her was still in question, but he did know his duty.

It occurred to him, climbing out onto the dock, that he had not seen Jowan since the day that they had fought a demon in the Harrowing Chamber. He wondered what Kathil had done with the blood mage, and how she'd gotten him inside in the first place. Did he remember correctly that the man was a shape changer? Maybe that was how.

For her part, Kathil had been avoiding him since the battle against the despair demon. Some part of him was glad; another part missed her. The Cullens who had been battling inside of him--the furious Templar, the dutiful Warden, the man who had a troubling set of attachments to those he traveled with--seemed to have come to at least a truce, if not an accord. He regarded the mage with a resigned suspicion. They were not done with each other, not yet; but whether they would reconcile or maintain their wary distance, he could not say.

They started up the long hill that led to the main road. "I swear this hill gets steeper every time I climb it," Kathil muttered. "Cullen, do you know where the Templars burn mages who die in the Tower?"

The question took him by surprise. "Yes, but why?"

"Take us there." She gave him a sidelong look. "I'll explain when we get there."

He couldn't see how it could possibly harm anything, other than delaying them on their trip to...wherever it was they were going. "It's this way."

Cullen remembered this, the wooded path, the remnants of ruined stone buildings, the muddy footing that was not yet quite recovered from the most recent storm, three days ago. The trees grew tall, unmolested by humans. The townspeople were under the impression that this place was haunted, though none of them could really say why they believed that.

Perhaps it was the occasional parade of silent Templars, carrying cloth-wrapped bodies, that passed through these woods. Or perhaps some legend of what even a dead mage might accomplish lingered.

The funeral ground proper was a meadow ringed by large trees under which shadows lingered even at noon. Fiann bumped into his legs as he stopped at the edge of the meadow. There were no markers, no stones, not even shreds of veils hung in the trees. Just the pyre ringed with rocks and the cleared patch of meadow around it. The grass of the meadow grew long and lush, no doubt in part due to the ashes that were regularly sprinkled on the ground.

This was where the Templars brought those who died, to forget them.

Kathil stepped forward and was quickly swallowed up to her waist by the grasses. She stooped, pulling something out of her pocket; a moment later, Jowan stood next to her. "You can carry your own damned pack now," she said, squinting in the sharp sunlight. Then she cast her gaze over the meadow. "Funny. Generations of mages lie in this ground, and all I can think is that it looks like it might be a nice meadow for sheep."

Fiann, next to Cullen, whined inquiringly. But as he looked down at the pup, she evidently caught sight of something moving in the tall grass, and with a bark flung herself into the meadow. Rabbits! said her joyous bouncing. Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits! Lorn followed her, though a little more slowly. The Mabari's ears were happily pricked and his tail wagging as he vanished into the grass, visible only as a stirring of heavy seed heads.

"But I do not think you came merely to look at a field, no matter how pleasant it might be," Zevran said. He'd been unaccountably silent all morning, a grave look on his elven-sharp features. "Or perhaps I am mistaken. It is very nice, for what amounts to a graveyard."

"No," Kathil said. She slipped her pack off of her shoulders, setting it at her feet. Jowan stepped away, a wary look in his eyes. "I...have something to tell the two of you. I wanted to do it where I knew very well there wouldn't be anyone to overhear."

_It's more than that,_ Cullen though. But what?

Jowan was edging away as Kathil took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant," she said in a voice that was quiet but clear. "A couple of months along, at this point."

The world seemed to stop for a long moment, as Cullen tried to understand her words, what they meant. "You--mages _don't_\--"

"I know," she said, and he realized that the tightness in her jaw and the way her hands were fisted portended fear. "But somehow I have."

Two months ago, they had been in Denerim.

Cullen exchanged a glance with Zevran, both of them apparently wondering, _which one of us..._

"I don't know," Kathil said, answering their silent question. "And I honestly don't care. As far as I'm concerned, you both had equal part in making this happen. If one, both, or neither of you want to step up, I'll cope. I...just wanted you both to know, at the same time. Jowan's known since before we arrived at the Tower."

Abruptly, the fact that the blood mage had been quietly putting some distance between himself and the three of them made sense. "_Jowan_ knew? You told him before you told _us_?" Cullen's voice came out more disbelieving and angry than the meant it. Zevran, uncharacteristically, was silent.

"He told _me_," she said, and there was a tense defensiveness in how her shoulders drew together. "He had to work on my shoulder after a hurlock tried its best to remove my arm. He figured it out, and created a spell to hold back the darkspawn taint in my blood from the child so I have a chance of carrying to term. I couldn't tell you in the Tower. I was not going to run the risk of Greagoir learning about my...condition." _And I was especially not going to trust you not to do something stupid,_ said her tight-lipped expression. The scar on her face deepened as she grimaced. "Nothing needs to be decided now. We're heading east, towards the Brecilian Forest and that old temple in the center. The temple is habitable, it's defensible, and there should be a Dalish tribe camped on the edge of the forest. We'll probably have to clean out whatever's moved into it in the last few years, but it'll do--and it's far beyond the reach of the Chantry."

Zevran spoke, finally. "And after, my Warden? What happens when spring arrives?"

There was tension in the air now, bowstring-tight. "I don't know. It depends on a lot of things. I figure I have a few months to think about it." She swallowed. "Well. We should hit the road. If we make decent time today we can be to Lothering in three days."

She had brought them here, to the mages' burial ground, to tell them this. To the only place that remembered generation upon generation of mages who had lived and died in captivity. _From death, life. From bondage, freedom._

He had memories of children who had never existed, locked tightly behind the doors in his mind that kept him sane.

Zevran stepped forward, crossed the distance between himself and Kathil in three swift steps. His hazel eyes were hooded, but his hands were gentle when they reached for the mage's. "Never doubt that I will stand at your side, whatever happens," he said, wrapping strong, tanned fingers around her own. "I may not have any practice at being a father, but surely it cannot be so difficult if so many accomplish it, no?"

Kathil freed one hand, her fingers visibly trembling, and touched the elf's face, tracing the Crow tattoos that accented the fine planes of it. "Thank you," she murmured. There was a fierce intimacy between them, and Cullen felt an urge to look away. The tension in the air slackened just a bit as the two leaned in to each other, ending in an embrace and a long, gentle kiss.

This was their moment, and he felt somehow like an intruder in it. He stepped back and away, something inside of him twisting in obscure pain. He heard Kathil say something, her voice too quiet for him to understand over the rising breeze and the autumn-fired leaves rustling. Fiann bounced up at the far end of the meadow, giving a happy bark.

"Cullen." He blinked and turned back toward Kathil and Zevran. The mage had stepped toward him, but she was stopped now, and her hand moved as if she wanted to reach out to him but didn't quite dare. She stood, shifting her weight between her feet. "I...just wanted to say that though you don't have to decide anything now, just remember that there is a place for you, if you want it." The hard mask that she so often kept between herself and the world had slipped, and he saw emotions flit across her features that he could not name--and doubted that she could, either. "Whether as a father, or a friend, or simply as a Templar--that is your decision."

She knew nothing of the bright place that the demon had created for him, the home and the family he had lost without ever truly having. It had been a cruel trick of the Fade, that creation; where once he might have given in to something he had always wanted without truly knowing it, now he hesitated. "I'll remember," he said at last, and the words were small and inadequate against all of the things that he didn't know if would ever be able to speak of to her.

Kathil nodded as if she understood, and stooped to pick up her pack. Then they were on the road again, heading east, autumn's chill turning all the leaves to fire and flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoever spots the Last Unicorn reference in this one gets a cookie. (But you might have to fight Sten for it.) :)
> 
> All right, out of the Tower, through the worst of the angstbunnies, and off to spend the winter in the Brecilian Forest. My life has gotten a bit crazy (deadlines always travel in packs), but I will continue to post stories as I have time to finish them. Thank you everyone for your kind reviews, they really do make my day!


	11. Broken Chord

_Kathil:_

Now, _this_ felt familiar.

"Twenty silvers for the lot," she said. "Not a copper more."

The merchant snorted. "And who else are you going to get to sell you all of this? Thirty-five."

_Andraste's ass, I sodding _hate_ Lothering._ "Twenty-eight and I don't mention to the Templars that you're teaching those little boys over there how to pick pockets along with the finer points of buying and selling." That little tidbit had been passed along to her by Zevran when he'd left her at this stall and gone to obtain some of the rest of the supplies they would need.

"You drive a hard bargain," the merchant said, a little too hurriedly. "Twenty-eight it is. I could call for my apprentices to help carry all of it—"

"No need." _Honestly, I'd lose half of it before we reached the camp. _"My brother should be along shortly—ah, there he is." Jowan was walking toward her, leading a long-eared mule hitched to a shabby cart. The creature's head bobbed, aiming an sullen look all around it.

The main square of Lothering, on the chantry side of the stream that ran sullenly through town, was bustling on this market day with farmers bringing in their harvests for trade and traveling merchants arriving with trade goods and promissory scrips from last year. The town was slowly rebuilding after having been nearly obliterated by the Blight; the local bann had opened what remained of his treasury and hired dwarves versed in the art of building in stone to come and help. What had once been a ramshackle collection of houses huddling near a beautifully built chantry was now a collection of little stone houses and tents near a chantry that was only half-finished. It was not, truth be told, much of an improvement.

She'd hated it the first time she'd come here, fresh from the Tower and still reeling with the aftermath of Ostagar, and she hated it now. Even the _name_ was awful. They might as well have hung a big sign on it that said _I Hate It Here And Can't Wait To Leave._

Those locals who had lived here before the Blight and who had returned after fleeing did not hold the Grey Wardens in high esteem. Kathil had warned everyone to keep their mouths shut about who they were while they in town, spending what little coin they had left.

_Can't be helped_. She counted out silvers from her all-too-thin purse for the merchant as Jowan came to a stop in front of the stall. "Help me get this lot into the cart," she told him.

"That's quite the haul," the merchant said as he began to hand her things: bucket, bowls, folded blankets and tents. "You two heading off to try to start a farmhold? There's opportunity out there for a young family, I hear, but you have to be careful of the beasties. Wolves are getting thick this year."

Jowan glanced sidelong at her, and she elbowed him. "My _brother_ and I are heading towards Rainesfere," she said. "There's land to be claimed."

"Brother?" The merchant looked between them. "You two don't—"

"Different fathers," Jowan said. "Long story. Anyway, we done here?"

"I think so," Kathil said. "Let's go. Good day to you, sir." The merchant nodded in response, and they started walking toward the edge of town and the field where visitors usually camped. "I hate this place," she muttered. "And I'm not sure, but I think this mule might actually be evil."

"You give me thirty silver and this is what you get," Jowan said. "The herder wanted half a sovereign for one of the good mules. This one's the soundest one of the lot I could afford with the cart we needed." The mule jerked at her lead rope and made a strange sound, half whinny, half bray. "You just keep on telling yourself that, creature."

"I wish I'd thought to go to Soldier's Peak and pick up some of the rest of my coin." Kathil shook her head, keeping her voice low. "Or that we could afford to go to the local bann and draw on our goodwill from the crown. But we have what we have. Maybe we can pick up some odd jobs on the road."

"Don't Grey Wardens get paid?" Jowan asked. "A stipend of some sort?"

She blinked. "You know, I have no idea. Duncan never mentioned it. We can find out when we go to Amaranthine. The Wardens must have some sort of income coming from somewhere, but I couldn't say where. One of the disadvantages of joining the order right before it collapsed, I think. I never got to ask a lot of questions about how the Order works, and after the Blight I was a bit distracted." The mule's long ears were flicking, and she eyed Kathil and Jowan as if trying to decide which of then she was going to bite first. "We supported ourselves during the war by being small-time arms traders. Even the shabbiest darkspawn blade was worth a few coppers."

They walked past the spot where the Chantry's cells had once stood. The only thing left to mark the place she'd met Sten was a rough-hewn stone block that the cages had been chained to. In her mind, Lothering had still been the same miserable, frightened little town filled to bursting with refugees that it had been during her first encounter with the place.

It was still miserable, but the fear had been replaced with something that Kathil couldn't quite name. The men and women who walked the streets did so with a sort of brittle belligerence. "Something's happened," Jowan said. "When I was here last winter, things weren't nearly this unfriendly."

She raised an eyebrow at the blood mage. "Do places _always_ fall into ruin once you've lived there a while?"

"Like you can talk." Jowan's raven-wing brows drew together. "Didn't Denerim mostly burn down a few years ago? And I heard that Orzammar had a very bloody battle over succession—"

"_Not_ my fault." And this was familiar too, dangerously so. Once, they would bicker over their books in the evening, generally until another of the apprentices threw a shoe at them and told them to shut up already. They'd fought viciously with each other, but had always ended up apologizing to each other in the same moment.

The old friendship yawned open in front of her, and she felt herself flinch back from the edge. Fortunately, they were almost to the place where they had left the packs and Lorn to guard them. "Did I ever tell you this was where I met Leliana? There was an inn—I think it burned down—and when we went inside some of Loghain's men jumped us. She helped us fight them off, then asked to come along."

"You do have a habit of picking up strays—_ow!_" The mule had snaked its head forward, ears pinned back, and given Jowan a good chomp on the arm. "I've mentioned that things with hooves hate me, right?"

"Join the club. I think it's how mages smell." She took the lead rope from Jowan and fixed the mule with a stern look. The creature looked back, mischief brewing in those eyes. "Don't even _think_ about it," she growled.

The mule flicked her ears again and dropped her head to try and snag a mouthful of grass. Lorn got up from where he'd been lying, giving the mule and cart a curious look. The mule stomped one hoof, but didn't seem to be particularly spooked by the warhound.

From the town side of the large meadow a commotion arose. Reflexively, Kathil looked over her shoulder, assuming that it was one of her group getting in trouble. She was, unfortunately, correct. There was an angry knot of people at the edge of the meadow, by the fence, and she saw both Cullen and Zevran backing away from that knot. "Throw the packs in the cart," she told Jowan, her whole body going tense. "I think we may have to leave soon."

She didn't stay long enough to hear his response, moving swiftly along a narrow path between pitched tents and still wagons. "You think you're so tough _now,_ knife-ears—"

"Truly? You think I am impressed?" Zevran had his arms crossed, looking at the pair of humans who stood with their hands on the hilts of their weapons. Behind them was a small crowd of similarly rough bruisers. Extra hands, little more; the men behind them emboldened the two in front, but in a fight would serve as little more than distractions. Cullen, next to Zevran, was visibly restraining himself from going for his sword.

They were _supposed_ to be posing as simple travelers, a group of people looking to establish a farmhold. And they were _supposed_ to be staying out of trouble. She'd wanted their trail to go cold after the Tower.

She'd forgotten that trouble followed Zevran around with a hopeful look on its face.

She stepped out from between two tents, coming even with Zevran and Cullen. The shorter man sneered. "And what's this? Got hit with the ugly stick a bit, darlin'?"

The taller one said, "Aw, we can just throw a bag over her head—"

Kathil felt the men on either side of her bristle. She laid her hand on Zevran's arm in warning. "I made the acquaintance of these two gentlemen just before we arrived at the Tower," he said in a low voice. "They seem to have taken the lecture I gave them to heart, but not quite in the way I meant it."

"Perhaps this one will stick a bit better," Kathil said. She stepped forward. "Gentlemen, what exactly is it that you want?"

"This knife-ear here tied us to a tree in the middle of nowhere! And now here he is, without the sodding great dog he had for backup last time. What, you think you're going to get in our way? Seems like you're picking a fight you can't win, darlin'."

She would have laughed, but that would have ruined the effect. _Seems like being a Grey Warden is a profession all about picking fights you can't win._ Instead, she smiled at the men. "So, it's the three of us against the...ten of you. A couple of your boys look a bit handy in a fight. I'm going to point out a few things that might just change your mind about getting into that fight with us. You decide to back down, we go our separate ways and never lay eyes on each other again."

The shorter fellow snarled. "We should just—"

It appeared that the taller one was also a bit smarter than his friend. He looked at her and scratched his sandy blond beard. "Think we maybe ought to listen. Kill them now, kill them in a little while, what's the difference?"

"See? No reason we can't deal with this like civilized people. So. First, though none of us is currently wearing armor, we _are_ armed. Well-armed, and with weapons that have obviously seen a lot of use." _And are more valuable than most things you will see in this life._ "Second, that _sodding great dog_ was a Mabari, as I'm sure you'd realize if you stopped to think about it. Mabari don't usually get too far away from their masters. He's around." She stepped towards them, and they held their ground. "But the third and most important thing—" She paused, and into the silence cast a spell she'd grown fond of over the last few years, the spell that enabled her to freeze people in place. "Is that not all mages wear robes, gentlemen. Good day."

She turned on her heel and walked towards the cart. "A hundred heartbeats, no more," she muttered as she passed between Zevran and Cullen. "Let's go."

They pelted through the meadow, arriving at the cart to find that Jowan had loaded it and was ready to go. Fiann rushed forward to greet Cullen, bowing and wagging furiously. "So much for being _inconspicuous_," Cullen muttered.

"As far as they know, I'm just another apostate mage," Kathil replied. "Hopefully." They began moving towards the edge of the field and the long slope behind the hill that led up to the old Tevinter road.

"And you really think they won't let the Templars here know that some mage cast a spell on them?"

"Better than having to deal with the local constabulary," she said. "I can probably convince the Templars to stand down and keep their mouths shut if they catch up with us. The constables here...not really."

Zevran glanced behind them. "Seems that our little friends didn't get the hint. Five of them follow."

She bit back a curse. "Let's just get to the road. If they're that eager to die, we're better off confronting them once we're out of sight of Lothering." They were starting up the long earthen ramp that led up to the road, moving at a near-run. The mule looked confused, but she seemed to be willing enough to keep up with them. They made the road and then slowed.

"I think they're still coming," Jowan said.

"Keep moving," Zevran said. "I will take care of our followers."

"Zev—" Kathil shook her head. "Let me help."

"You are many things, my Grey Warden, but stealthy is not among them." He smiled at her, but his eyes had gone to stone, and there was a note in his voice that she knew all too well. "Let me take them my way. I will catch up."

They locked gazes with one another for a moment, Kathil raising her chin. _Do not push me,_ Zev's expression warned. _Not on this._

She relented, unwilling to start a fight with him over this. "Ambushes are your specialty. Just be careful, all right?"

"I am _always_ careful." But the tightness around his mouth told a different story. She wondered what the two would-be strongarms had said to him before she arrived; _knife-ear_ was usually not enough to rile Zevran, but unless she missed her guess he was well and truly furious. The tattoos on his face accented the hard lines of anger. She hadn't seen this side of Zevran for some time.

Though he had left the Crows behind, he was still what they had made him, at least in part.

She went over to him and kissed him swiftly, then called, "Let's go." They started moving again, and when Kathil glanced over her shoulder, there was no sign that Zevran had ever been there.

She took the mule's lead rope from Jowan and they hurried on. Kathil tried to ignore the threads of dread that were twisting in her gut.

*****

_Zevran:_

He ought to have killed them when he'd had the chance.

These were the men he had met when he was looking for Cullen, the ones who had tried to rob him and who had had most thoroughly humiliated. He had _thought_ that he would never see them again, and that they would possibly turn their hands to safer ventures than being somewhat incompetent highwaymen.

Unfortunately, they had taken the intervening month and decided to start a bit of domestic criminality. Likely they had seen an opportunity in Lothering, which had recently grown from a large village into a small town. Any place that had enough people also had an opportunity for organized crime to move into it, should any of the locals prove enterprising enough. The Templars and the bann's soldiers had quite a bit on their hands already, and likely wouldn't notice that these two had gone into business for themselves—at least not until it was too late to do much about it.

Not that Zevran had any love for Lothering—in fact, he'd never been to the place, as far as he could recall—but the fact that he had misjudged the two bandits personally rankled. As did, if he had to admit it, the names they had called him. It had been some time since he had been around people who were both small-minded and ignorant enough of what he was to say such things to his face.

He had thought he had grown immune to the bite of words meant to nettle. It seemed he had not, at least in part; and as for _why_ it bothered him now—

He would not think on it. Not yet, while there was still murder to be done.

As he had expected, the men had lost a few of their bully-boys during their pursuit. Evidently, they had stopped to argue amongst themselves, confident that they would be able to catch up with their prey. If Zevran were this enterprising pair, he would tail them at a safe distance and ambush them in the middle of the night. A sleeping mage was vulnerable.

It was a reasonable plan, if one was entirely ignorant of the fact that there were two mages, one former Templar, and one assassin among them. Two Mabari, as well. Zevran waited in his hiding place by the side of the stone-paved road, listening.

And there they were. Five fellows armed with weapons that had seen better days, moving quickly. "You _fool_, Lucas," the shorter one of the main pair said. "We're going to lose them."

"It's not like they have much choice for roads," the taller one said. "We'll catch them. The Templars might even give us a reward, if we bring the body of the mage back with us."

"You think?" one of the other men said. "They don't pay for tips on apostates. I know, I tried once. That I had done my duty to the Chantry was enough of a reward, he said. Duty doesn't feed an empty belly or fill a wineskin, I say."

"The one I know's a good fellow," the tall man said. "And he doesn't like having to risk his men in the field when they're needed in town. So I think I can talk a few sovereigns out of him, for gratitude."

Zevran stayed hidden as they passed by, watching. They all wore rough leather shirts, the most rudimentary of armor. All of them walked like veterans; the one who had mentioned that the Templars did not buy information moved with a familiar grace. As he waited, a wordless plan fell together. The Crows trained their blades in the art of knowing without knowing. Long practice had made that art as much a part of him as his soul or the tattoos on his skin.

He knew how each of these men was going to die.

Zevran was out of ambush without a second thought, and the nearest one went down with a choking gasp as a blade ripped into his back. That was one. The one next to him got a cut throat as he turned to see what had happened to his fellow.

That was two.

Steel rang as it came free of sheaths. Zevran's next target was the graceful one who brought out two daggers and went after Zevran with both at once. Zevran went low and hooked one foot around the fellow's ankle, yanking him off balance, then dodged as one of the others swiped at him with a longer blade. When he looked back at his target, the man was closing—a mistake. Zevran sank his shorter blade between the man's ribs and twisted, then swore as he felt the edge bite bone. The blade was stuck, and there was nothing to be done except to let go of the hilt. He kicked the falling man out of his way and tumbled as another blade swung at his neck.

The graceful fellow landed in the dirt, eyes already glazing over.

That was three.

Now he had lost the advantage of surprise, and the two fellows who were left worked together well; the last time Zevran had confronted them, he'd had Mabari backup. Lorn had kept them off-balance while Zevran had knocked them around enough that they'd offered little resistance to being tied up.

He jumped to the side as the shorter one's blade flashed, opening a superficial wound on Zevran's arm. As if first blood were a sign to get serious, the two began to work on Zevran, handily blocking him when he tried to move. Two men who fought well together were sometimes more dangerous than a whole squad who did not.

Zevran found himself wishing for a bit of magical backup. _Pfft, Arainai, have you become so used to traveling with your Grey Warden?_ The fight went on for some time, longer than Zevran had expected, long enough for all parties to grow a little weary. Zevran was bleeding; so were they. He'd pulled out another blade, so he was still well-armed, but his shorter blade was used mostly for intercepting incoming blows, not for striking.

Then the taller one stepped back for a moment, and Zevran saw an opening, and took it. He put his weight behind a blow—sword an extension of his arm, death in every movement.

The blow was true, and the tall man folded around his blade as the steel punched a hole through him just under his ribcage. Zevran pulled back, and was rewarded with a gush of bright blood from the wound the metal left behind. His pleasure was short-lived; a fist hit the side of his head, sending him staggering away with one ringing ear. Now it was him against the shorter man, and Zevran was finally free to move. He made short work of the man, opening his belly and then his throat as his opponent staggered then fell.

And that was five.

He paused, breathing hard, surveying the road with the exquisite satisfaction of a job well done. He should drag the bodies off to the side of the road. No sense in leaving them here—

The thought was interrupted by a strange sensation at his right ankle, followed by pain. He took a step and found himself falling. A desperate twist in midair had him landing on his shoulder instead of his face, and he saw the tall man behind him, knife wet with Zevran's blood, dragging himself forward.

Reflexively, Zevran tried to get to his feet, only to encounter pain and a sickening sensation in his ankle as if something that ought to be very firmly attached was not so much at the moment. _Hamstrung._ He had lost time as he had tried to get up and his opponent was on him, using his greater weight to pin Zevran to the stone of the road, his blood seeping everywhere. "I will take you with me," he snarled, his breathing labored.

Zevran elbowed the man in the face, feeling bone crack under the blow. As the human reared back, a natural response to a broken nose, Zevran pulled one of a brace of thin knives from beneath his shirt and twisted his body hard.

He was good at slitting throats, almost as good as he was at finding the spaces between ribs in an opponent's back and gaps in their armor. There was a sickening moment as time slowed, as the tall man's body began to realize that its jugular veins had been cut. The man's eyes went wide, and he choked and tried to stab Zevran.

He did not succeed, instead passing out before he completed the motion. The knife, falling, nicked Zevran's shoulder but did little damage. The man's weight settled on Zevran as he made a bubbling gurgle and died, his life's blood still draining in a spreading warmth, soaking his killer's clothing.

Zevran shoved the man's body off of his own. He took stock of himself—minor gashes, except for the wound to his ankle. That had been very neatly done, taking advantage of the relatively thin leather of the boots he wore. _And I liked these boots. Ah, well._ There was no question of standing, much less walking. He tried to move the foot—it responded, but strangely. A disabling injury. He'd seen its like a few times before. If it were not mage-healed, he would likely lose the foot.

Even with mage healing, he was likely to be off his feet for a bit. Of course, right now he needed to survive the next few hours, until his Grey Warden decided to come looking for him. (She would look, he told himself. She _would_.) While wolves would not come this near to town, there were packs of feral dogs that haunted the edges of most settlements. They would be attracted to the blood.

He forced himself to roll and get carefully to one knee, swearing as his bad foot caught on a stone and brought fresh agony with it. Carefully, he half crawled, half dragged himself to the edge of the road and to the hollow that he had secreted himself in for the ambush. He'd left a trail of blood, he knew, but it could not be helped.

Zevran closed his eyes and waited to see if his Warden would arrive before the scavengers did.

*****

_Cullen:_

"Something is wrong," he muttered, half to himself. They had been on the move for over an hour, slowing as time went on to allow Zevran to catch up.

"He's probably just behind us," Jowan said. "Should we stop?"

Cullen shook his head. "No, I mean..." How to explain this feeling of panic-laced dread, other than _it's been too long and Zevran should have found us long before now?_ "I think I should go back to look."

Kathil had been silent since they had left Zevran behind, but now she spoke. "You're right, but we should all go. Let's turn around. Why I let him go by himself..." She'd been leading the mule, and now she clucked her tongue at the poor beast, earning herself a pair of flattened ears in her direction. She sidestepped as the mule aimed a bite at her arm, giving the equine a dark look. "Someone told me once that mules are smarter than horses."

"She doesn't like mages. I'd say that's pretty smart," Jowan said. "I think we can get her turned around here."

"I'll go ahead," Cullen said.

"Go." Kathil waved him away. "Take Lorn and Fiann."

He was not about to argue. He was not wearing his armor; Kathil had decreed it too conspicuous for their supposedly incognito visit to Lothering for supplies. They had expected to get through the town in a few hours. That was before Zevran had been spotted by two men who appeared to recognize him—and bore a grudge.

The only thing that surprised him was that this didn't happen more often. Though he supposed the whole _assassin_ thing meant that most of the people he offended didn't live long enough to put together seething mobs.

Cullen made good time, Lorn pacing beside him, Fiann alternately trotting and walking, stopping to sniff at plants and rocks and then scrambling to catch up. He rounded a turn in the road, saw still forms lying on the rough stones of the road, and his breath caught in his throat. He broke into a run.

There were five bodies. All of them human. None of them Zevran.

One of the dead men had a knife with a familiar hilt sticking out of his chest. Cullen went to the body and pulled—ah, the knife was stuck, which explained why it was still here. He planted a foot on the man's shoulder, and yanked. The blade hesitated and then came free.

So. Where _was_ Zevran?

_If you have abandoned us—_

And where had _that_ ugly, angry thought come from?

But if he was gone, if he had left—the assassin's presence, and that of Fiann, were two of the very few things that were getting him through what was turning out to be a long and uncomfortable journey.

There was a smear of blood on the stone by the edge of the road. Lorn sniffed it, and barked—the elf! Nearby! The warhound snuffled his way to the edge of the road and then off of it, wagging furiously as he vanished into the undergrowth. Cullen and Fiann followed. Cullen went cautiously, Fiann bounding ahead, something in her mouth that Cullen didn't see clearly before she vanished.

There was a groan as Cullen shoved his way between a pair of bushes. "Yes, I suppose I am happy to see you too, dog," came a familiar voice ahead. "Particularly if it means Kathil is near."

Cullen ducked beneath a low branch and came into a hollow left behind by a fallen tree. In the hollow was curled Zevran, with Lorn industriously licking his face. Fiann was alternately sniffing him and bouncing.

The elf was covered in blood, his clothing soaked through—

"Mostly not my own," Zevran hastened to say, apparently seeing the stricken look on Cullen's face. "Minor wounds, except the one that hamstrung me." He gestured at his right leg, which was lying at an awkward angle. "I don't suppose you have Kathil with you? Otherwise, I am not going anywhere very quickly."

"She's on her way," Cullen said. "We should get you out to the road to meet her. You can't walk?"

Zevran shook his head. "Putting weight on that leg leads only to falling over, I fear. But if you can help, I think moving out to the road is a possibility."

Cullen knelt beside Zevran, pulling him to a sitting position and then getting under Zevran's arm. He more or less bodily lifted the elf to his feet, stooping a little to make up for the difference in their heights. The elf's skin was paler than usual, all of his muscles locked in tension. He had to be in a great deal of pain.

He got Zevran out to the road and settled him at the edge. He looked at the elf's wounded leg, and shook his head. "The boot is going to have to be cut off," he said.

"Ah, it was ruined anyway." Zevran smiled, though his lips were tight and it was almost more of a grimace.. "If you do that now, Kathil will not have to do it when she arrives."

Cullen set to work, getting a good look at the elf's leg in the process. The cut was nasty, white bone showing through a wash of blood. The boot had been filled with blood, the leather soaked through. "What happened?"

"I got sloppy, I fear. One of my opponents was not quite as dead as I imagined." He rolled his shoulders, setting his head back against the stone he was propped against. "I believe I will be the subject of a dressing-down from our fair mage when she arrives. I may, in fact, deserve it."

"Likely." He came to sit down next to Zevran. "Why did you decide to do the ambush by yourself, anyway? Any of us would have stayed." And the _look_ he had given Kathil when she had suggested that she stay...something had passed between the two of them then, and he was not quite sure what.

"A foolish anger, Cullen. A foolish anger indeed." His voice was rueful. "I thought I would not need help. This is my trade, after all. Not necessarily hers, or any of yours."

"She's a _Warden—_"

"And the business of the Grey is darkspawn. Not necessarily eliminating men who I ought to have killed when they first attempted to rob me." He did not open his eyes. "Nor arranging the deaths of those who are stupid enough as to assume I am inferior simply because I was born an elf."

Carefully, Cullen asked, "But...that doesn't usually bother you, does it? I mean—"

Zevran gave a short laugh, cutting Cullen off. Lorn emerged from the bushes, coming to lie down at his side. "No. It does not. I am an Antivan before I am an elf. But recent events have...changed things. My opponents caught me at a difficult moment."

_Recent events have changed things._ He had to be talking about the revelation of Kathil's pregnancy. The children of elves and humans were always, for all practical purposes, human. Relationships between those of different races were frowned on by both elves and humans—the elves attributed the slow demise of their people and their culture to interbreeding, and humans seemed to hate the idea that any given human might carry elven blood.

Zevran had stated that he would stand beside Kathil, no matter what happened.

"You anticipate problems," Cullen said, voicing his conclusion aloud.

"I do." The elf's drawn face was still tipped up towards the sky, the thinning autumn light picking out lines of care that gathered at the corners of his eyes. "We are going to encounter the Dalish, who have little love for humans. They may feel gratitude towards us for helping them with their werewolf problem, but that gratitude may not extend to showing us even simple courtesy. I believe that Kathil has a plan for dealing with the Chantry, but I have a feeling that the Grey Wardens will also not take a particularly charitable view towards us."

Cullen raised an eyebrow. "Do you usually go on killing sprees when you're worried?"

Zevran's eyes opened slightly, and he darted a glance at Cullen. "I find a good death or three quite takes the mind off of one's troubles, yes?"

He chuckled and slid an arm around Zevran's shoulders. The elf leaned into him, fever-warm. "I believe this is what Kathil means when she says that you are sometimes a very bad man."

"Sometimes? Tch. I am losing...my touch." Zevran's eyes closed again, and his head rolled forward. "Perhaps...the tall one's blade...was poisoned..."

Alarmed, Cullen shook Zevran, only to receive no response. His heart still beat, but slowly. He could do nothing but wait for help to arrive, and hope. He pressed his lips to Zevran's hair, one of the very few parts of him not covered in clotted and drying blood, and prayed.

*****

_Jowan:_

Kathil was not particularly comfortable company at the best of times, but especially not when she was worried. He'd ventured a bit of conversation after Cullen and the dogs had disappeared around a bend in the road, and received a snapped "Shut _up_" in return.

Then they rounded a hill to discover a grisly battle scene, bodies lying flung here and there, and Cullen cradling Zevran at the edge of the road, concern written on his features. Black flies gathered, dancing in buzzing clouds over the blood spilled on the stones. The mule snorted, alarmed, and he spent a moment convincing her that she was not allowed to turn and run.

(The body had so much blood in it, like an overripe fruit. Shattered and spilt, here on the road, a cold wind rising from the southeast. These were the sorts of things he thought about, when confronted with so much of the instrument of his chosen craft.)

Lorn barked a greeting as Kathil hurried towards the two men, abruptly all business. "What can you tell me?" she asked Cullen as she dropped to one knee. Zevran was covered in blood, though there were few enough visible wounds, and he appeared to be unconscious. One foot was bare, oddly enough.

Cullen's hands were sticky and darkened where he held the elf. "He was awake when I found him. He said his wounds were minor, except for one on his ankle—I saw that, it's a mess and a half, bad enough that he couldn't walk. I cut his boot off of him. He talked to me for a while, and then passed out. Not blood loss, I don't think. Poison."

Kathil's eyes were closed in concentration already, and he felt the familiar ripple of magic as she summoned power. Her hands moved over Zevran's chest, searching in familiar patterns as the magic reported back to her the elf's condition. "You're right. I've seen this before, but rarely. Fortunately, the Crows spend a lot of time making their apprentices sick on poisons so they can safely handle tainted blades. He should be fine. In fact, being out might be a mercy for him, right now."

She scooted down to Zevran's feet, picking up his injured leg. Jowan could see her jaw go hard, the scarred corner of her mouth twisting downward. "This is...not good. There's supposed to be a cord running here that attaches the calf to the heel. It's been severed completely."

"Can you fix it?" Cullen asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know. _Maker,_ I wish I'd learned more from Wynne! The poison is going to complicate the healing." She manipulated Zevran's foot, still frowning. "Jowan, come take a look."

He tied the mule's lead rope to a handy tree branch, and came over to drop down next to her. "You did a good job on my shoulder," Kathil said. "Tendon is a lot like scar tissue in ways. It's hard for my magic to deal with, it just doesn't respond like muscle and skin."

Jowan nodded and called on his own magic, ignoring the dark look that Cullen was sending his way. "Point his foot, hard," he said. "This is going to be easier the closer the ends are to each other. I can put the tendon back together, but you do not want me trying to deal with the flesh. And it's going to be pretty fragile for a while."

"I can do the rest if you get the tendon back together." She glanced at Zevran's face, his skin an unhealthy sallow color that likely had something to do with that poison. "At least I can make a start now, and finish when the poison is out of his system." Kathil manipulated Zevran's foot, pushing on the top of it to bring it in line with his lower leg. "Is that enough?"

It was. Barely. Jowan nodded and concentrated. Normal healing and blood magic did not live together easily in the same soul, but there was a type of healing that was very much available to blood mages. If normal healing spells were a needle and thread drawing flesh and bone together, Jowan's healing was more like a smith repairing a broken sword, heating and pounding the metal back into shape. It was very, very painful, both for the healer and the healed, and it left terrible scarring behind. Heavily scarred hands and arms were the trademark of blood mages for a reason.

He studied the break in the tendon with that magic, and then breathed out and _pulled_. It was a very good thing that Zevran was unconscious, because from the corresponding pain that sent hot needles of agony up Jowan's leg, this would have been exquisite torture had he been awake. He stretched and pulled the cord of flesh together, covering that last hair's breadth, and then released the power held in reserve to knit the stretchy but tough tendon back together.

Voices whispered in the back of his head. He ignored them.

A moment later, it was done, and Jowan let the power go. Without a word, Kathil took over, and her power began to work on the flesh around the tendon, putting together severed muscle and blood vessels. She scowled as the ankle resisted her power, and the air shivered as she tore the Veil open wider.

"Kathil." Cullen's voice was filled with warning. "_Stop._"

"Just a little more—" Her face contorted.

"_No._" The Templar's face was like stone. "Something's coming. Let the Veil close. Zevran won't bleed to death if you wait a few hours to get the rest healed."

Somehow, even sitting on the ground with Zevran lying unconscious in his arms, he still managed to be an imposing figure. Mage and Templar stared at each other for long heartbeats, silence stretched between them. Then Kathil bowed her head briefly, and let go of her power.

The Veil closed, and the whispering faded.

"I'll bind and splint it. _That_ I can do, at least." She rose and went to the cart, ignoring the mule, who stomped one hind foot at her. A little while later, they had Zevran patched up as much as they could, and settled into the cart along with their packs and the supplies they had bought.

They had a few hours of daylight left, and so hastened their footsteps. Zevran roused late in the afternoon, feeling ill enough that his usual bladed humor was absent. Kathil confirmed that the poison had mostly worn off, and they paused to let her work on Zevran's wounds. There was more than just the ankle to deal with, but the severed tendon was, as he'd claimed, the worst.

"You have to stay off of it entirely for a few days," Kathil said, her expression severe. "And I mean _entirely_. You need to use a bush, you take one of us with you."

"Ah, I _so_ look forward to it," Zevran said. "There are some perversions that I have never wished to try."

"Tear it again and there's a good chance you'll limp for the rest of your life, _Master_ Arainai." The two of them were glaring at each other, making Jowan feel as though he probably ought to find a nice friendly tree to hide behind. He did _not_ want to be anywhere nearby if these two decided to fight.

The elf waved one hand. "Fine, fine. I am put in mind of Wynne. She always frowned so when one of us was resisting taking our medicine, so to speak." He smiled, lightning-quick. "I recall you earned many of those frowns, my Warden."

"I'm starting to gain an appreciation for what we put her through." Kathil thumped the side of the cart with one hand. "Let's get going. We're wasting daylight."

As they moved on, Jowan saw Lorn come even with Kathil. She put one hand on the warhound's back, as if wanting to reassure herself—of what, he could not guess.

*****

_Kathil:_

They stopped in the ruins of a farmhouse, a stone-ringed firepit in the middle of the dirt floor indication that they were not the first to use this as a waypoint. She finally got to finish healing Zevran as much as she could, reinforcing the fragile tendon and then splinting Zevran's foot in place. When she was done, he beckoned to her. Shadows gathered under his eyes, and he was still an unhealthy color.

She lay down on her stomach next to him, stretching out on the blanket. The tension of the day had settled into a multitude of knots in her gut. "I fear I have irritated you," Zevran said.

"I just—" She broke off, closed her eyes, blew out a long breath. "It's been a long day, and a worrying one. Are you going to do this again?"

"This specifically? I doubt I will have the opportunity."

"Not what I was asking." She lifted her head and saw his face turned towards her, head propped on one of the packs. "You ran off for a reason. Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Mmm." Zevran's expression went thoughtful. "I believe I may have. Though it came at a price."

Only on very rare occasions was Kathil frustrated that there were large swaths of things that the two of them simply never talked about. This was one of them. And it was plainly a terrible moment to bring any of those things up; Zevran was half-asleep and wounded, and she was bone-weary and not in the most stable of moods.

Looking at him, she reminded herself that he was alive and would be fine given time, and she was alive and would likely be about the same. They had survived another day. She reached over and tucked his hair behind his ear, smoothing down the tangles that hoarded firelight. "Good," she said, and felt some of the knots in her loosen a little. "Go to sleep, Zev."

He closed his eyes, a few words in Antivan escaping his lips. "_Mi alma, mi amor._" She blinked and stayed very still, but Zevran was asleep, and when she took her hand from his hair he did not stir.

Kathil rose from the blanket and went to poke the fire. Jowan was rolled in his own blanket, asleep—he would take long watch tonight, and getting a few hours of sleep before his watch began was a good idea. Lorn lay near the fire, one ear cocked towards the crumbling wall that served as a door to this dubious shelter.

Cullen stepped over stone and into the abandoned house, Fiann vaulting in afterward. She pranced over to Lorn and grabbed one of his ears, yanking. Lorn gave Kathil a long-suffering look, then sat up and planted one huge paw on the pup's back. Fiann immediately collapsed and rolled to her back, wriggling. See? Harmless! Play with me?

Lorn whuffed softly. Time for sleeping, now. Fiann sighed and stopped her wriggling.

"I settled the mule," Cullen said. "In the morning, I want you to look her over. A lot of the time, if a mule's sour, it's because they hurt somewhere."

"And where did you learn about mules?" Kathil asked, surprised.

He shrugged. "They had them in Woodson, to help plow. I don't know much about them other than how to check their feet and groom them, but I learned a thing or two."

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. She finally raked one hand through her hair and said, "I'll take first watch. Get some sleep, Cullen. And...thank you. For earlier." She had been out of her mind with worry, and that was a dangerous state to be working magic in.

He didn't move. "Earlier? Oh. I didn't think you'd thank me much if I hit you with the cleansing right then."

Kathil poked her stick into the fire, was rewarded by a fall of glowing embers releasing a shower of sparks upward to the sky. _Are we going to keep repeating this same dance, this same broken chord?_ "You are my Templar. I trust you. Still."

Cullen looked surprised. "You do?"

"I told you, that doesn't change." And it didn't. _I am possibly the most idiotic mage ever to walk Thedas._ She straightened and stepped forward, intending to go past him and take up a watch post outside.

Instead, he caught her shoulder in one hand as she tried to go past. Frowning, she turned toward him. "You mean that," he said. "I thought—"

"That I might lie to make you feel better?" She laughed a little, bitterness at the back of her throat. "No. If I were lying, I'd tell you I didn't care a thing for you, and set you free. But, no." She shrugged. "I told Leliana once that I was selfish. It's still true." There was venom in the words.

His hand was still on her shoulder, and he hesitated and then pulled her towards him. Just a little. If she had pulled away in that moment, he probably would have let go, and they never would have spoken of it.

But she did not pull away.

Instead she stepped towards him, and found herself enveloped in a hug. From the way his arms tightened around her, Kathil thought that Cullen was probably in as much need of comfort as she was. They both might have lost someone important to them, today.

And _Maker_, she had missed him.

All too soon, they let each other go. Wordless, Kathil went out of the shelter, traitorous tears stinging her eyes. _Let him go. Just...let him go._

But endings were never easy, and as she settled down on a half-rotted stump just outside the shelter, she thought that this might well not be an end. Perhaps a change, but not an end.

Kathil looked up at the stars, feeling the wind prickle her cheeks. Winter was coming, and swiftly.

She only hoped they found shelter before it arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unexpectedly long chapter is unexpected, and long! I actually intended Lothering to be a transitional scene, but then Zevran went off by himself and I found myself curious as to what he was up to. For good reason, it turns out. I only noticed the various bits of symbolism after I finished the chapter and they reared up and chomped me on the nose. (Achilles heel, anyone?)


	12. Coventry

**Twelve: Coventry** ****

_Lorn:_

They travel, and the road knows their footsteps, knows them.  It is a fine thing, to be pacing along with his human and her pack.  His human is--not precisely _happy_, but mostly content, which is enough for the moment.  Her elf still rides in the cart that is pulled by the hooved-thing; his human is pleased with the way his wounds are healing, but she still gives stern growls when her elf tries to insist that he can walk.  There is a tinge of chilled metal to her scent these days, an edge of concern and anger.

But her pack is strong; the dust-knight’s confusion is turning to determination, and the mouse-mage is starting to get along better with his human.  When she has her pup, her pack will guard her--Lorn first among them.

For now, though, she allows the elf to walk only a little bit, in the evenings, and the rest of the time they are on the move.  She throws sticks for him and Fiann, when they stop to eat and rest, and at night when they camp there is a fire to keep them warm.  Sometimes, they will stop and hunt; the mouse-mage is able to change into a form that looks like a wolf but still smells like him, and they hunt together, leaving Fiann behind with the rest.  Some day soon, she will be able to keep with them on the hunt; for now, when they go to run down a deer, they do not let her go with them.

And at night, when she is not curled up with her elf, his human lies with her arm over Lorn’s back and her face in his neck, and she breathes in and tells him what a good dog he is.  The best dog in the world, bar none.

It is true, of course, and he wags his tail and licks her ear.

He is unconcerned with their destination; they will come to it when the road brings them there.  The first snow falls, little more than a dusting of white overnight that vanishes once the sun fully rises, but something about that snow makes his human uneasy.  He understands, a little.  She does not wish to be caught in the open by winter, before she has found a safe den for them.

The dust-knight watches his human, when she is not looking.  The dust smell of him is rounder these days, more mellow.  He no longer carries that little bag around his neck, the one that held the sharpest of the sharp scents.

And yet sometimes he still smells of sour frustration, metallic anger, and the ticklish musky scent of need.  Lorn remembers that once his human was mated with her dust-knight and her elf both, and her scent was all lightning happiness.  He wonders if the dust-knight will ever make her smell that way again.  He and his human’s elf are still mated, but that too has thorns in it.

These are all things that Lorn knows, catalogued in his nose and his heart and in the paws of his pads.  This is pack and this is travel.  These are things that he understands.

So they come to the edge of a great forest.  They camp for the night at the edge of a meadow as a bitter wind rises, chilling them all to the bone.  In the morning, they wake to find the whole world covered in snow.  He rushes out of the tent and meets Fiann, and together they dive through drifts, throw mouthfuls of the cold white stuff into the air.  The dust-knight makes balls of it and throws them; Fiann chases, barking joyously.

This is _fun!_ her happy barks say.  Why hasn’t anyone told her before how fun this is?  Snow, snow, _snow_!

“It won’t be as deep once we get into the forest proper,” he hears his human say.  “I wonder if there is a Dalish tribe in the area at this point.  The one we dealt with a few years ago has to have moved on, but I got the impression that they re-use campsites.”

“Do we _wish_ to see them?” her elf asks.  

Fiann has made it to the other side of the meadow, bouncing through the snow like the deer he runs down sometimes do, ears a-flap and puppy paws flying everywhere.  The air is still in that way the world often is after a snow, and when a breath of wind does stir, the forest around them fills with the sound of snow falling off branches.  

“Wish to?  Probably not.  But I’d prefer to deal with them up front.”  His human sounds wary, and Lorn pricks his ears, coming to full alertness.  The wind stirs, and there is a scent that Lorn did not smell before.

He gives a warning bark as Fiann bursts through a snowdrift and tumbles to a halt, her happy bark going to a confused whine.

There is an elf about three body-lengths from Fiann’s nose, with a drawn bow and an arrow aimed right at her.  His human’s hand is curled in Lorn’s collar.  “_No,_” she says, and her voice is stern enough that Lorn sits down hard.  He does not stop growling.  He could, if he needed to, tear himself out of his human’s grip and go flying at the elf.  

He does not.

“_Fiann_\--” the dust-knight calls.  “Fiann!  Come here.”

The pup had been wagging her tail tentatively at the elf, her head cocked, but she reluctantly turns and comes away, happy enough to have a clear idea of what to do.  She does not have much experience with having bows drawn on her.  Lorn’s growl deepens as he sees the elf’s arm draw back a little more, tension readying that arrow to strike.  

“Settle, Lorn,” his human mutters.  Lorn stops growling, though he does not take his eyes off of the elf.

There are more.  The errant breeze is telling him that much.  And they should not have been able to move this silently, with the fresh snow--snow is a noisy thing if you are not a rabbit or a fox, light enough to skim the surface.  They should _not_ have been able to sneak up on them.

He subsides, and watches as the elf steps out into the meadow.

*****

_Kathil:_

_Speak of the Dalish and they appear, I suppose._  

She kept two fingers curled in Lorn’s collar.  The Mabari, though he was no longer growling, was stiff with the desire to address the situation that had just walked out into the meadow.  She didn’t blame him; the appearance of the elf who had proceeded to threaten Fiann.

The pup, for her part, was peeking out from behind Cullen’s legs, confused at her very first experience meeting someone who didn’t think she was adorable.  Cullen bent to stroke her head, still keeping an eye on the Dalish who was looking at them in silence.

“Greetings to you,” she said, keeping her tones carefully formal.  The elf was a thin man with light hair, dressed in the leathers of a hunter.  Which meant that there were probably more nearby, watching.  The back of her neck prickled unpleasantly.  She saw his gaze flick over her and to Cullen, then back to Zevran who was standing nearly at her shoulder.  Jowan had not yet emerged from his tent, and she fervently hoped he would have the wisdom to stay where he was until this ticklish situation was resolved.

“You trespass, shemlen,” the hunter called.  “Why have you come here where you are not welcome?”

Well.  No harm in trying the direct route, was there?  “I am the Grey Warden Kathil Amell,” she said.  “I would speak to your Keeper, hunter.”

He recognized the name, she saw, though not happily.  _I would rather have honest dislike than false ingratiation, though._  “The Dalish owe the Grey nothing,” he said, his voice flat.  “We have discharged our debt.”

“We only seek permission to pass through.”  She spread her hands.  “Nothing more.”

“And yet you bring _dogs_ into our lands.”

Once, humans had used the ancestors of the Mabari to hunt down the Dalish.  They had never forgotten.  “Lorn is my true companion,” she said, deliberately using the same phrasing that the halla keepers did for the halla.  “I will not abandon him.  And Fiann, the pup, is under our guardianship.  Please, take us to your Keeper.  We will speak, and then we will depart.”

The hunter hesitated, looking them all over.  Then he put two fingers to his mouth and whistled, the sound piercing through cold-brittle air.  Feet shushed through snow, and elves appeared as if from nowhere at the edges of the meadow.  “Leave your animals,” the hunter said.  “Come with us.”

“A moment,” Kathil said.  She went to Jowan’s tent, stumbling a little in the snow.  She lifted the flap and stuck her head inside; Jowan was, thankfully, fully dressed.  His brows were knitted.  “Come on,” she said.  

“Do I have to?  I could stay with the dogs--”

“Yes, you _have to_,” she hissed.  “They have to get a look at all of us.  I promise they don’t bite.  Might shoot us full of arrows, but they don’t bite.”

“At least biting might be a little fun,” the blood mage grumbled.  “Let me grab my boots.”

She withdrew and went to talk to Lorn.  “You stay here.  Keep Fiann and the mule safe, and make sure nobody makes off with our supplies.”

Suspicious whuff.  The woodsmoke elves threatened Fiann.  They were _not allowed_ to do that.

Kathil crouched in the snow, scratching Lorn’s neck.  The warhound rested his chin on her shoulder.  “I know.  But I have to greet those who hold this territory.  Otherwise, we may end up doing a lot more running than we want to this winter.”

The warhound considered, then leaned into her.  All right.  He would stay.

Lorn understood about territory, she knew.  “Sit on Fiann if you have to,” she murmured, and was answered by a low, amused _whuff_.  Then she ruffled his ears and stood.  Jowan was emerging from his tent, earning himself a narrow-eyed look from the Dalish who was watching them in silence.

Zevran was climbing to his feet, using the stick that she had cut for him a few days ago.  He had grumbled about having to use it, but Kathil thought he might secretly like being fussed over, at least a little.  There were so many ways to tell a person you loved them, without ever using the words.

They were good at that, the silent language of what they were together ebbing and flowing between them.  Now she offered him a hand, and helped pull him up the rest of the way.  “Two apostate mages, a Templar, and an assassin walk into a heavily armed Dalish camp,” she said, pitching her voice low.  “Sounds like the setup for a very bad joke.”

“It does at that,” Zevran said.  “Though I doubt the Keeper will find it amusing.  She might find the ‘three Grey Wardens and an Antivan walk into a Dalish camp and ask for a drink’ version more so, no?”

“It depends on the Keeper, I suppose.”  Cullen had just finished giving Fiann instructions, and Lorn came over to put one huge paw on the pup’s back, pinning her down to the pup’s noisy indignation.  The four two-legged members of their group walked across the meadow, wading through the nearly knee-deep snow.  The Dalish who had greeted them nodded to them and led them into the forest without another word.

As they entered the forest, soft _schuff_ing sounds heralded the arrival of the rest of the hunters, who fell in around them.  All of their bows were string, their knives loose in their sheaths.  A tree limb above them let go of its load of snow and dropped a large clump on Kathil’s head.  She yelps and tried to brush it off, icy water trickling through her hair to chill her scalp and the back of her neck.

Under the trees, the snow was thinner on the ground.  They moved slowly anyway, though winter-muffled woods.  A jay made a _scree_ and flew across their path, the bright blue bars on its wings flashing.  Trees pressed close, hemming them in.

They walked for an hour, and came at last to the Dalish camp.  Aravels were arranged in a loose ring between trees, their steering fins folded down.  It was always so surprising, how much _life_ there was in these camps--fires burning, food cooking, halla making little calling brays.  Elves stopped what they were doing to stare at the newcomers.  Uncomfortably, Kathil noticed that most eyes were drawn to Zevran.

That might be good, or bad.  _Probably bad_, she thought grimly.  There were certain_\--assumptions_\--that might be made about his presence with them.  And, of course, there were the Crow tattoos on his face.  

Her dark thoughts were broken by the hunter speaking.  “I will go speak to our Keeper,” he said.  “Stay here.”  He departed, leaving the rest of the hunters ringing the four of them.  They edged together, their breath showing white in the cold air.

After a little while, the hunter returned, another elf beside him who wore the cloth collar of a Keeper.  She was slightly built, with braided black hair and tattoos surrounding bright green eyes.  “I am Keeper Merrill,” she said as she drew near.  “Which of you is the Grey Warden?”

Kathil stepped forward.  “I am the Grey Warden Kathil, the senior Warden in this group.  These are Warden Cullen and Warden Jowan.  Zevran travels with us, but is not a Warden himself.”

The Keeper’s sharp eyes narrowed.  “We have no quarrel with the Grey,” she said.  “Fenarel tells me you wish to travel in these lands.”

“Into the Brecilian Forest, yes,” Kathil replied.  “In my travels, I’ve found that it’s best to speak with whichever clan is in the vicinity when traveling through Dalish lands.”

“You seek no recruits, then.”  Was that disappointment on the woman’s face?  “Why do you travel into the Forest of the Dead?”

“On my own business,” she said.  “I will discuss it with you, but in private.”

The woman gave her a long look, then nodded.  “Be welcome in the camp, then.  Come with me.  Fenarel, make sure that our guests are made welcome.”  Fenarel grimaced, but nodded.  Merrill turned, motioning Kathil to follow.

They went into what Kathil assumed was Merrill’s aravel.  The caravan was tidy, all curved surfaces and carvings, a colorful blanket spread over the niche that held the bed.  Kathil had never been inside an aravel before; Zathrian had preferred to speak to them outside.  Of course, she’d also had Lorn and Alistair with her.  Alistair was many things, but able to fit comfortably into a space as small as this was not one of them.

Merrill motioned her towards a stool that sat by a small window, and seated herself on the edge of the bed.  She pulled off the thick gloves that she wore on her hands, laying them next to her.  “You are the Grey Warden who dealt with the werewolves,” she said.  “I recognize the name.  Lanaya speaks highly of you.”

Kathil raised an eyebrow.  “I was under the impression that Lanaya resented me for my interference.”

The elven woman chuckled.  “That, as well.  So.  What brings you back here?”

She hesitated, then took a deep breath.  “I am with child, and looking for a place to shelter far from the reach of the Chantry.  I was a Circle mage, once.  I believe the Chantry still considers me its property.”

Merrill’s eyebrows shot up.  “Do they pursue you?”

“Not yet.  I am trying to go beneath notice.  Thus, coming to a place that guards itself from outsiders.”  She smiled thinly.  “It won’t work forever, of course, but this gives me time to consider my options in relative safety.  The ruins in the center of the forest, the former werewolf lair, is where I was headed.”  Merrill was listening intently.  The Keeper was deceptively easy to talk to.  Unlike Zathrian and Lanaya, she did not give the impression that she felt any disdain for the shemlen who had found herself in her aravel.

She suspected that the Keeper, above all things, was an excellent actress.

“It has been some time.  We have heard that creatures have moved into the old ruins.  Rumors of dragonkin, mostly.”  Merrill sat back a bit, narrowing her eyes slightly.  “So you seek nothing of us other than to let us know you are passing through?”

Kathil shook her head.  “No.  No Blight, this time.  The Grey Wardens are recruiting, but your people helped us break the Blight, and we ask nothing more.  There are some Dalish elves amongst the ranks of the Grey, now, mostly those who distinguished themselves during the Blight.”

The other woman nodded.  “I remember.  So.  Three human Wardens, two of them mages unless I miss my guess, and an elf.  In what capacity does this...Zevran...travel with you?”

Kathil blinked, and then realized that there was an edge to the woman’s tone that told her exactly what she was getting at.  “Zevran is my...”  She paused, and pursed her lips.  “Well, if mages were allowed to get married, I’d probably be trying to get him into a chantry to make things official right now.”

It was the wrong answer.  Merrill’s eyes went cold.  “And the child is his?”

_Oh sweet Andraste._  “It is mine.  Who happened to father it is not important.”

“Oh, isn’t it?  You shemlen are like bindweed.  You wrap around the elves and choke us out.”  She shook her head sharply.  “There is a reason we do not camp in the _setheneran_.  However, it is no concern of ours if you die in there.  Go, if you must.”

It was a clear dismissal.  She rose.  “Are you planning to be here for the whole winter?”

“Perhaps.  Why?”

“Because you know where to find us, if you find your people in need of some Grey Wardens.  I gather there aren’t many darkspawn in the area, but if you come across any...”

Merrill glanced to one side, her gaze falling on an ornament that Kathil had not noticed before--a necklace hanging on the wall, made of what looked like hundreds of interlocking beads, each carved in the shape of an animal.  “We lost several of our most youngsters to the darkspawn, because the Grey Wardens were gathered at Ostagar and not patrolling the southeast.  Had a Warden been here, things might have turned out differently.  I will remember.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, and Kathil left the aravel, dropping awkwardly back down to the ground.  Her companions were sitting by a fire, eating what looked to be some sort of fried bread and listening with varying levels of interest as an older elf told a story.  She was reasonably sure that Zevran didn’t mean for his fascination to be quite so open on his face.  

Uneasy, she looked away.  _He is an adult and has made his own choices,_ she reminded herself.  Then she steeled herself and went up to the circle.

“Pardon the interruption,” she said to the storyteller.  “But I need to collect these three.  We won’t impose on your hospitality any longer.”

“We were just getting to the good part,” Jowan protested.  

“Indeed, the shemlen is right,” the storyteller said.  “Surely you can stay at least until the story is finished?”

She glanced over her shoulder.  Merrill seemed to be staying in her aravel.  She relented, and came to sit down between Zevran and Jowan.  “We really do need to go after the story is done, though.”

“Now, where was I?  Ah, yes.”  The storyteller sat up a little, and spread his hands.  “So Faellin stood before the invaders, at the bridge that crossed the Ianith River, and told them that they could not pass.  The Ianith was running high and swift, and Faellin was but one man.  They thought they could take him, but they could not have been more wrong...”

*****

_Zevran:_

He wondered what in Thedas the Dalish Keeper might possibly have said to put his Grey Warden so very on edge.

They traveled into the Brecilian Forest, keeping to what few established paths there, having to shove the cart over, around, and through deadfalls and places where the paths had become overgrown.  Though he could have been helpful, Kathil had declared that he had done _quite_ enough walking for the day already.  He almost argued with her, and then his ankle twinged at him, and he thought better of it.

He had not come along to deal with the werewolves, and he wondered now if this forest was always so hushed, or if it was merely the snow.  When he asked, Kathil shook her head.  “I think it’s the snow.  I remember lots of little birds in the undergrowth, and rabbits and deer.  And blight-maddened wolves and bears and werewolves and crazy sylvans.”  She glanced up at the trees they were passing under, leafless and black-branched oaks.  “I think I prefer the quiet.”  Padding next to her, Lorn sneezed in agreement.

Jowan had tromped a little ways ahead; whether out of impatience or a genuine desire to scout, Zevran could not tell.  “The path evens out up here,” he called back now.  “It’s almost as if it were a road once.  I think it might even be partially paved.”

“We don’t know who built the ruins we’re going to, but they look almost Tevinter.  And the Tevinters built roads at the drop of the hat, so it’s possible that it used to be a road.  We’re getting closer.  Keep an eye out.  There were some characters back in here that I don’t really look forward to meeting again, and the paths wind around and get confusing.”

The cart wheels creaked and Zevran winced as they found yet another stone in the road, jarring him hard.  Cullen was leading the mule.  He paused, the mule happy enough to come to a stop.  “You said the werewolves were gone, right?”

“We got Zathrian to break the curse and they turned back into humans.  Why?”

The Templar pointed at the snow at the side of the path.  “Because there are some really big wolves in this forest, then.”

None of them were trackers, but it did not take training to recognize a perfect canine footprint left in a spot where the snow was a little thinner on the ground.  There were other prints, but none nearly so clear.  The print was wider than Zevran’s hand, and had likely been made when the beast had paused on the road to look around.

Lorn sniffed the print and growled, then looked up at Kathil and whined.  Wolf.  Big.  Strange.  He snuffled the print.  Zevran was not as good as interpreting the dog’s intent as Kathil, but he got the impression that the wolf had passed by recently but not _too_ recently.

Fiann was sniffing the print too, and now she yipped and dashed off, bouncing through the snow in a way that reminded Zevran of some of the games the apprentice assassins had played that involved dancing from chair to table to shelf, crossing rooms without ever touching the floor.

_Click-click-click._

The sound was faint, almost unheard, but it brought Zevran immediately to attention.  The forest was silent; not a breath of wind stirred, not a bird, not a mouse.  The clicking sound did not repeat.  “I am imagining things,” he muttered.  “It was nothing,” he said when Kathil aimed an inquisitive look his way.  “I thought I heard something.”

_The entire forest is an old road,_ he remembered her saying.

Cullen stepped forward and the mule followed, the cart lurching into motion.  The creaking of the cart drowned out all sounds as quiet as the well-remembered sound of Rinna’s beads clicking together.  He wondered, then.  The despair demon had been defeated.  Not killed.

If it had followed them...

He closed his mind to the possibility.  They were going to ground, and this was the safest place they could find.  Any possibility that it might prove far more hazardous than the hospitality of the Chantry, he refused to admit.

Zevran’s memories of Rinna chuckled, her mouth curled in amusement.  She whispered half-remembered poetry into his ear.

_I fear you, love, in the sharp nights of your smile._

*****

_Cullen:_

He bashed a dragonet’s body away from him with his shield, followed it with a clean stab through the midsection, the creeling reptilian thing beating its dying wings against him.  “That’s the last of them,” he called.  “Nine for me.”

“Eight for me,” Zevran said, wiping his blade on a dragonling’s wing.

“Five--six--seven for me,” Kathil said.  She sheathed Spellweaver, resettling the blade on her hip.“You win.”

“Do you people _really_ keep _score_?” Jowan asked, sounding slightly disgusted.

Kathil bent to look at a dead dragonet, nudging it with one toe.  “Got in the habit during the Blight.  It’s morbid, but we had to have _some_ fun, or we would have gone mad.  I think my record for one battle is seventeen hurlocks, eleven genlocks, two shrieks, one emissary, and one of those not-quite-drake things.  That was a fun one, I think I went through three lyrium potions trying to keep up.  And it turned out to be lucky Wynne was along--”

She paused, and glanced at Cullen.  There were spatters of dragonet blood on her face and in her hair.  “That was Fort Drakon.  A few hours before we killed the Archdemon.”  Kathil straightened.  “It’s too bad we can’t do anything with dragonling hide.  We’d certainly have a ready supply.  Let’s keep going, I think I remember this corridor opening out into a big chamber ahead.”

They’d left the mule discontentedly pawing at the snow out in front of the temple, and once they were inside it was reasonably obvious that there was a female dragon nesting somewhere inside.  There were too many dragonlings here for it to be anything else.  Cullen took point next to Lorn, Kathil and Zevran just behind them, and Jowan and Fiann on rearguard.  He’d had to speak to the pup sternly several times; she just didn’t understand that she was still a baby.  

Cullen glanced back and saw that the pup was proudly carrying something in her mouth.  It looked a bit like a severed dragonling tail.  He sighed and forged on.

The large chamber that Kathil remembered was still there, a circular dais in the center suggesting that this room had once been used for public services of whatever gods had been worshiped here.  It was empty other than for piles of dragonling droppings.  Evidently, this was where those they had killed had been staying.

Kathil took a sharp right and started heading down a long flight of stairs.  “Let’s hope that the door down here is still unlocked.  I’m not looking forward to going through the long way.”

“Why?  What’s the long way?” Jowan asked, taking the steps two at a time to catch up with her.

“Through several floors’ worth of dragons.  I’m going to bet there’s a female dragon and her drakes nesting down here.”  She slowed as they neared the large doors at the bottom of the stairs.  “Maybe some undead, too.”

Cullen watched as the two of them inspected the door.  As soon as they had gotten into the Templar, Kathil had seemed to relax.  It was as if some part of her was only at home when she was surrounded by stone.  _Child of the Tower,_ he thought.  The corridors were straight instead of curved, there were pointed arches everywhere, but the feeling was still the same.

She yanked on the door, and it creaked and ground and gave way only a little.  “Going to need a bit of help, guys,” she said.  “We could blast it open, but we’re going to want these doors intact.”

“Allow me,” Zevran said, digging through his pack.  He came up with what appeared to be a flask of oil, which he began to apply both to runnels that led to hidden hinges and to the ground just beneath the door.  “The Tevinters were a bit predictable in some ways, no?” he said, capping the flask.  “A practical people, who knew that metal rusts.  Try it now.”

The mage hauled on the door, and was rewarded by it budging a little more.  “Cullen--”

But he was already there, wrapping both hands around the handle of the door, flanking her hands.  “On three--one, two, _pull_!”

The door resisted, then gave a little.  Then a little more.  Kathil planted one foot on the door they weren’t opening and shoved with that leg, and they won a little bit more.

He was pressed shoulder to shoulder with her.  He _should_ have felt uncomfortable, but she had been treating him with careful distance for the last two weeks, and it was oddly reassuring to be this close to her for once.  And that was something he shouldn’t think about much right now.

If ever.

They stopped pulling, and Kathil stuck her head into the room beyond.  “Looks deserted.  Thankfully.  Let’s go, gentlemen.”  

They each slid through the partially opened door--Cullen got a bit hung up when his breastplate caught the edge of the door, but with a bit of swearing and shoving he was through all right.  Kathil and Zevran were wearing lighter armor than he was, and had little trouble getting through.  Beyond the double doors was what has once been an entrance hall, or so Cullen surmised; it was bare now except for a thick layer of grit and a few pieces of broken wood that might have once been furniture.  

It smelled better in here than it had upstairs, which was surprising.  Maybe the smell of dragon droppings had stunned his nose, or made dank, musty air smell positively fresh by comparison.  But as Kathil opened the door, a _breeze_ came with it.

Beyond the foyer was a long hall, and at the end of the hall was the trunk and gnarled roots of a great tree.  “It’s still here,” Kathil murmured.  “I’d hoped it would be, even after the Lady of the Forest was gone.”

“That is...quite the tree,” Zevran said.  They were walking toward it, looking up to where the ceiling was cracked and shattered by trunk and limbs.  Afternoon light filtered down through the branches, illuminating walls where moss nearly obscured decorative carvings.  “And does it still have leaves?”

“Looks like.”  They stopped at the base of the trunk, where small drifts of snow piled.  Some of the roots were taller than Cullen.  The whole thing made him feel very small.  “I have a feeling they built this temple around this tree.”  The mage was looking upward, a strange expression on her face.

It took a moment for Cullen to recognize that look as one of peace.

Jowan ran his hand along a smooth-barked root.  “Strange.  This place feels different from the rest of the forest.”

“Whatever made the Brecilian Forest into an old road, it didn’t touch this place,” Kathil said.  “There are living quarters beyond that door, I think.  Let’s go see what the werewolves left behind.”

“Are we going to go take care of the dragons?” Zevran asked.

The mage’s lips twitched, her scar deepening. “I don’t think so.  Can you think of a better discouragement for people who want to poke their noses where they don’t belong?”

The look on Zevran’s face said that he might have some issues with that, but he would table them until later.  For now, they trooped back up the stairs and started hailing packs and bags down.  “What are we going to do with the mule?” Jowan asked Kathil.

They were unloading the last of the bags from the cart, in a makeshift corral made from brush and the columned remains of a building.  There were gravestones at the back, inscriptions unreadable for weathering and moss.  “Thought we might find some wood and expand this corral, maybe build a shelter for her.  Though if we’re _lucky_, maybe something will eat her.”  Kathil gave the mule a dark look.  The animal put her ears back and snorted.  

“If you folks want to carry the last of the bags down, I can build a lean-to for her quickly,” Cullen said.  “I think there’s another storm coming in.  Leave the dogs with me.”  

She nodded and shouldered a bag.  “Don’t be too long,” she said.  A few moments later, the rest were on their way back to the temple, leaving Cullen alone with the dogs and the mule.  It didn’t take long to gather enough long branches to frame a simple shelter.  More branches, crisscrossed, and some evergreen brush made a roof.  

“It’s not wonderful, but it’ll do for the moment,” he told the mule.  Even if nobody else liked the long-suffering creature, he liked her.  In fact, he suspected that he liked her in part _because_ nobody else liked her.  He sat down on a cracked stone, glancing up at the sky.  The wind was picking up, and clouds were moving in.

Fiann rubbed against his legs, and he let her jump into his lap.  “You’re going to be too big for this soon,” he told her.  Already, she couldn’t fit herself entirely into his lap; her rump with its stubby, wagging tail hung off of his legs.  

She licked his chin.  I will always be able to fit!  Always, always!

“Always,” he said, relenting.  Lorn came and sat down at his feet, giving Cullen a long look.  “And don’t look at me like that, hound.  I’ve seen you try to fit into Kathil’s lap.”

The warhound snorted and looked away.  It was quiet, other than for the whisper of wind through pine boughs.  Cullen was used to not having any time or space to himself--Chantry and Templar life did not provide much for privacy--but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate it when he found it.

He had a lot to think about, and nobody at all he could talk to.  Kathil was out for obvious reasons, and he didn’t trust Jowan.  Zevran, he thought, was a bit biased.  And the dogs were, well, dogs.  

None of them could really tell him what he ought to do about the fact that he might have fathered a child.

He _could_ just continue to keep his distance.  It was just all too convenient.  The despair demon tormenting him with visions of a family, of children, and then the possibility of actually having something like a family...

Cullen had wondered if it had known.

What did he _want_ to do?  Difficult to say.  And he was going to come to no conclusions today, it seemed.  He patted Fiann.  “Up, little one.  Let’s go see if we can help with dinner.”

The pup’s ears perked up and she nearly flew off of his lap.  Dinner!  Dinner!  Lorn got to his feet as well, still giving Cullen those sidelong looks.  “I don’t know what your problem is, hound,” he muttered.  

Don’t you? said that cocked ear and dismissive scratch with a hind foot, kicking snow and mud upward.  Don’t you?

Surprisingly, there was something like a kitchen in the living quarters behind the giant tree.  Even more surprising, by the time he and the dogs arrived, dinner was already well on its way to being ready.  “Take your pick of rooms,” Kathil told Cullen.  “I think this used to be a cloister of some sort.  There are a lot of rooms, but most of them are tiny.”

He found that she spoke only the truth, but also that there were a few larger rooms hidden away.  He found one in particular that was larger than the rest; from the rotting wooden shelves along the walls, it had once been a library or scriptorium of some sort.

They found bed frames, simple wooden boxes on legs, and Cullen dragged one of them into this room.  The other thing that had been left behind in abundance was furs.  Evidently, the werewolves had nurtured some hopes of becoming fur traders--or they had simply liked sleeping on piles of furs.  Either way, there was a whole storeroom of neatly piled furs, sorted by size and animal type, all expertly tanned.  Cullen brought a pile of the smaller ones and a couple of the larger ones into his room, and placed them in layers between himself and the bottom of the bedframe.

It was at least as comfortable a bed as any he’d ever had in the Tower.  Fiann curled up at his feet, and he quickly dozed off.  Some time later, how long he had no guess, his door opened quietly.

Cullen went from being half-asleep to being fully awake in an eyeblink, even before Fiann woke and whined.  “It is only me,” called a familiar voice, pitched low.  The door closed, and Cullen heard Zevran’s steps--with just a slight hitch as he limped on his still-healing leg--cross the room.

A moment later, there was a warm, masculine body sliding underneath the blanket next to him.  Cullen was too surprised to protest--and then he wasn’t sure he wanted to.  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he scooted over to make room.  Zevran was shirtless, though wearing pants.  

The elf chuckled.  “And just why do you think I might be slipping into your bed in the night?  Not for murder, so there is only one other explanation.”  And his hands were already wandering, as were Cullen’s.

“The last time--”  _I was half out of my head with withdrawal.  I didn’t know what  I was doing.  _Except he had.  It was one of the few clear moments he’d had, dripping wet with bathwater and feeling the wrench of sudden, desperate _need_.  “Let me make it up to you.”

“There is nothing to make up, but if you insist...”  Zevran’s tone was playful.  Then he took a swift breath in as Cullen slid his hands down his body, muscles going taut.  Cullen pulled at the laces of Zevran’s trousers, and a moment later he was licking and nibbling his way along the elf’s skin.

Ah, he had _missed_ this.  He could have taken his time, teased, but there was a raw wanting in him that demanded to be assuaged.  And from the way Zevran was reacting, there was a matching need in him.  Cullen worked his mouth along Zevran’s length, enjoying each gasp and arch, each wordless mutter of encouragement, Zevran’s hand resting lightly on the back of his neck.

And so it went, the two of them trading positions, drinking deeply and slaking a thirst that Cullen had been denying.  And when they were finally still again, lying embraced in the darkness of the temple stone, Fiann wedged herself between the two of them and proceeded to fall asleep.  

“Does Kathil know you’re here?” Cullen asked, keeping his voice quiet.

“She does,” was Zevran’s reply.  “So, tell me.  What are you going to do?”

Cullen took a deep breath, knowing exactly what he was asking about.  “I don’t know.”

“There is a difficult road ahead.”  One of Zevran’s hands traced the side of Cullen’s face, the outline of his ear.  “Pledge your support or do not, as you see fit.  But do not let your guilt make this decision for you, and try not to let our Grey Warden dangle without knowing much longer.  It makes her...irritable.”

Cullen closed his eyes; he could see very little anyway.  “Doesn’t everything?”  He sighed.  “I’ve been thinking about it.  It’s just--the despair demon.  It tormented me with visions of...a life I’ll never have.  What might have been.  There are things I am not _supposed_ to want.”

“And you are no longer a Templar,” Zevran rejoined.  “Would it not be better to enjoy the life you have, rather than the one you think you should want?”

Cullen had no reply to that.

Some time later, Zevran slipped from the room, leaving Cullen alone except for Fiann.  He smoothed down the sleeping pup’s ears.  _Enjoy the life you have._  He was a Grey Warden; he was half of a partnership between a mage with too much power for her own good and the Templar who guarded her from the world and the world from her.  

And like it or not, there was a child who he’d had a part in creating who was going to need parents.  With the usual life expectancy of Grey Wardens and those allied with them...the more parents, the better.

He fell asleep still thinking about it, in the silence of stone.

*****

_Kathil:_

She was mostly asleep when Zevran returned.

“I take it you had a good time?” she murmured as he slipped into bed beside her.  He was warm, and as she curled herself around him she inhaled deeply.  She smelled Cullen on his skin, and an unexpected lance of pain twisted through her.  _If only--_

She felt Zevran’s lips on her hair.  “I did.  Are you all right?”

_Yes.  No.  _“A little melancholy, is all.  I knew what I was getting into, seducing Cullen.  I’ll be fine.”  She stretched out her legs a bit, the toes of one foot brushing the cool wood of the bedframe.  Around her wrist was bound a soft cloth, holding the rune that powered Jowan’s spell to her skin.  “Tell me something about Antiva, Zev.  Something pretty.”

He chuckled a little.  This had become a habit with them lately.  Zevran enjoyed talking about his homeland, and Kathil felt a bit of a need to escape to somewhere warm.  “What should I tell you about tonight?  Hm.  The courtyards, I think.  Antiva City’s noble districts are a warren of blank-faced buildings, but within those buildings are courtyards lushly planted with fruit trees and flowers. In the late summer, the perfume is tremendous--the flowers of the _granada_ tree bright red, the flowers of the _citron_ white but with a powerful fragrance.  In Antiva, we always believe that that most beautiful things must also be the most secret...”

Kathil, when she slept, dreamed of courtyards, of _granada_ fruit spilling ruby pips and blood-colored juice into her hands, the sharp and sweet smell of citron and jasmine, beautiful women with dark jeweled eyes dancing through the warmth.  

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you're right, the Dalish Origin guest-stars in this one. Don't worry, we'll see them again before Quiet Foxes is finished.


	13. Winter Fire, and Snow

_It well may be that in a difficult hour,  
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,  
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,  
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,  
Or trade the memory of this night for food.  
It well may be. I do not think I would.  
_

_—Edna St. Vincent Millay, from “Fatal Interview”_

*****

_Jowan:_

It was as if time came softly to a halt, muffled by snow, chilled into stillness.

The pattern of their days took up a quiet rhythm.  Whoever got up in the morning first would stir up the fire, fetch wood from the store of well-seasoned firewood near the room that passed for a kitchen, fetch water for tea.  There were days that they went hunting, days that they ventured out into the temple to make sure that the dragonkin who were resident were not attempting to make another foray toward the entrance of the temple.  Cullen went to check on the mule twice a day, moving her corral a few times and building her a better shelter once he was happy with its location.  

In the evenings, they would gather in the kitchen.  Sometimes they would talk; Kathil told them what she knew of Grey Warden lore, Zevran would tell them stories he’d heard as an apprentice Crow.  Jowan and Kathil would both practice their magic, and Zevran and Cullen and Kathil would spar.  Though, as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, his fellow mage was getting to be a bit slow on her feet.  It was less unwieldiness than it was exhaustion; she was starting to show, but not enough that it was getting in her way quite yet.

He probably shouldn’t have been surprised that pregnancy made Kathil rather cranky.  She seemed to take the various inconveniences of pregnancy as a personal affront.  Part of it, he knew, was that she’d intended to ask the Dalish tribe they had encountered if they might be able to spare a midwife when the time came, but Keeper Merrill had turned unfriendly when she’d realized that Zevran and Kathil were involved with each other.  All of Jowan’s knowledge of midwifery came from books.  Zevran knew very little, and though Cullen had experience with whelping and foaling, he’d never been present at a human birth.

They still saw the occasional sign of the Dalish near the temple, but the elves themselves stayed out of sight.  By Jowan’s count, it had been two months since they’d come to the Brecilian Forest.  He wondered if this fragile peace they seemed to have found was going to last.

Especially when it appeared that the Chantry’s arm was a bit longer than they had originally anticipated.

He always took on the form of a wolf in order to hunt; he was glad that Flemeth had insisted that he had learn the form, back when she was teaching him shapeshifting.  Wolves were swift and had both incredible endurance and very little difficulty with snow; he could actually outpace Lorn for a few minutes at a time, when he put his mind to it.  Right now, he was lying flat on his belly near the top of a long hill, looking down at the armored men who were struggling along the path below him.  Lorn, next to him, grumbled low.  

They were Templars, for sure.  The skirted armor and sword-engraved breastplates were proof enough of that.  But what were they _doing_ here?  Had they followed all the way from Lothering?

He glanced at Lorn and thumped his own long tail once against the snow.  Get closer.  Investigate.  But carefully.

The warhound quietly rose to his feet, and the two of them ghosted down the hill, falling in behind the men.

“I tell you, this is a false lead, and I mislike the feel of this wood,” said one of them, a young man with a truly prodigious moustache.  “We should head back west.  Nobody is here.”

“That elf insisted that there were two maleficars back here, and we have a duty to investigate.”  Jowan’s insides went cold; had the Dalish tribe they’d talked to betrayed them?  “If we turned around every time the woods got dark, we’d never hunt down any maleficars at all.”  The one who spoke was the obvious leader—a woman, surprisingly enough.  

“Jeph is right,” another of the Templars said.  “Rylock, these woods feel _wrong_, and night is coming on.  We should turn back and get an early start in the morning.”  He glanced back over his shoulder, and both Jowan and Lorn froze in place.  He turned back, evidently not having seen them.  

“There’s a wide place in the path up here, we can camp there overnight,” Rylock said.  “Move out, men, flapping your jaws isn’t going to make the light last any longer.”  She stepped forward, head up.

A prickling feeling swept over Jowan, a sense of _presence_.  He started when he realized something was in his peripheral vision that hadn’t been there a moment before.

A woman.

She crouched in the snow, the only covering she wore over her green-tinted skin a wrapping of knotted vines that hid nothing at all.  His lupine nose twitched as her scent reached it—tree bark and snow, rich loam, musk.  Her hair was dark, and as she turned her head towards Jowan and Lorn he saw that her eyes were a solid, lightless black.

She was—familiar.  Why?

The woman gestured silently, smiling, raising fingers that ended in narrow wooden branches.  Then she rose, taking one step and then another—

Changing.

His jaws dropped open as he saw her shift forms—dark red hair and Chantry robes—apprentice robes and swaying hips—tiny black braids and skin-tight leather—each step a new form, many of which he did not recognize.  

_Oh, Maker.  The despair demon._

She was running now, and she was a child.  A little girl with a mop of ginger curls wearing a tattered dress, filthy and thin.  “Sers!” she piped as she ran.  “Sers!”

The Templars came to a stop with a clatter of armor.  “What the—” the mustachioed one started to say, and then caught himself.  “It’s a _girl._”

“I noticed, Jeph,” Rylock said.  She looked uncertain, as if she didn’t quite believe her eyes—but badly _wanted_ to.

Jeph dropped to one knee in the snow.  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, not unkindly.

The demon came to a stop just out of reach, looking at the armored men and women warily.  “Ma and Da—we were traveling, and the elves came out of nowhere.  Ma told me to run, so I ran, and I got _lost_ and I’m _hungry_.”  She peered at the Templars.  “She always said that if we got separated to try and find a knight. Are you knights?”

The Templars exchanged uneasy glances.  “There was that wreckage by the edge of the forest,” the blond in back muttered.  “We didn’t see anyone.”

The demon sniffled.  “I keep hearing noises.  I think there are wolves...”

Jeph sighed, and opened his arms.  “Come on, little one.  We’ll get you something to eat and get you somewhere safe.”  The demon edged closer, then seemed to lose all reluctance at once and stepped into the knight’s hug.  He picked her up and set her on his hip.  

Rylock looked like she was about to object, and then shook her head.  “Fine.  We don’t have a lot of time before dark.  Let’s set up camp—up there, I think.”

The Templars walked down the path, heading towards a relatively flat area near the junction of several paths.  Jeph was the last, carrying the demon.  She looked back at Jowan, something like triumph in her eyes.  _Don’t interfere,_ she mouthed.  Then she put her head down on the knight’s shoulder.

Unable to help himself, he followed, slinking along at a safe distance with Lorn beside him.  The Templars were obviously used to camping rough; they had their tents set up, trench dug, fire built, and food cooking in less than an hour.  “You remind me of my sister,” Jeph told the demon, who he’d wrapped in a blanket and was handing food to.  “She looked like you when she was your age.  Mostly the hair.”  He ruffled the demon’s tangled curls, and she ducked aside with a wordless protest.  “Always did that when I tried to muss her, too.  She’s grown now, has a baby on the way.”  The knight’s voice faltered and failed then, as if he had just reminded himself of something he’d prefer to forget.

Jowan thought he knew what was going to happen.  The Templars would turn in, leaving one on watch.  None of them would wake up in the morning, and the forest would swallow their bodies.  He should be happy.  He should leave and let the demon do its work.  They were _Templars_.  The enemy.  The people who would run him through if he were to reveal himself.  

And yet.

Did even a Templar deserve to meet such an ignominious end?  

He felt oddly torn.  He could change, walk in there, announce himself as a Grey Warden.  (But would they believe him?)  He could tell them, warn them.

He could walk away.  Nobody would ever know.

_This is a sodding _rotten_ time to grow a conscience, Jowan._

He retreated, and changed back to human.  He had parchment and charcoal in the bag he carried, and with them he wrote a note and rolled it tightly.  Then it was back to wolf form with him.

The sun had gone down, and with the cloud cover the only real light was from the Templars’ fire.  The demon apparently slept, wrapped in a blanket, sitting leaning against Jeph.  The rest of the knights were retreating to their tents.

He signaled Lorn to stay, and slipped forward through the trees.  He could see so much more clearly in this form, especially in dim light.  He knew which tent was Rylock’s, and knew that the knight was currently talking with one of the others, the fire between her and her tent.

Jowan slipped into her tent, then dropped the rolled note on her bedroll.  It was a little damp from his mouth; couldn’t be helped.  Then he was out and running, getting some distance between him and the camp.

He had given them little enough.  It might be enough.  Just one message, scrawled on a much-scraped piece of parchment.  _The little girl is a powerful demon. If you value your life, run.  Now._

It was probably more than he should have done.  The Templars were a problem that the demon had offered to solve.  If any of them got away, he or she would likely bring back more.  

He consoled himself with the knowledge that it was likely that his warning would go unheeded.  Rylock might miss the note.  She might decide to read it in the morning.  She might read it, but dismiss it.

She might decide to try to kill the demon while it was apparently helpless.  Jowan remembered fighting it in the Harrowing Chamber.  It would not be as strong here, likely, but it would be by no means defenseless.  (And _why_ it was here of all places was a question best contemplated in the safety of the temple.)  He had no doubt of the outcome of that battle.

He ran and Lorn ran beside him, and together they fled over the crusted snow.  The entrance to the temple was before them now, and they paused so Jowan could change back to his original shape.

A shadow detached itself from the deeper shadows by the door, and he froze in place.  Lorn gave a surprised bark and then a vicious growl.  Jowan knew the dog well enough to know that particular growl was saved for demons and other creatures of the Fade.

“You warned them.”  The voice was female, and carried with it resonances that suggested a whole chorus of people speaking.  The demon was back in the shape of the green-skinned woman.  Lack of light turned the roots that spread over her skin into twisted shadows.  “Why?  Are they not your enemies?”

She was between Jowan and the door into the temple.  He bit back a curse.  “They don’t need to be.  Kathil seemed confident that she could talk any Templars into leaving us alone.  Grey Wardens, you know.”

“And yet.”  She stepped forward, moving too smoothly, too gracefully.  Nothing mortal was that graceful.  “I could feel your fear of them.  Fear keeps mortal creatures alive, you know.  It drives them to caution.”

“Why?” he blurted before he could stop himself.  “Why did you go after them?”

She sniffed delicately.  “I told you before.  I am not your enemy.  You travel with the thrice-bound, and you have gone to ground here, where my world and yours rub shoulders.  The spirit who once resided here is gone, but she left the impression of both of her selves behind.  She was not fond of these people—Templars, yes?  They seemed much like the ones who so rudely sealed away my former ground.  And you feared them. It was...a favor.  A favor done in hope of a favor’s return.”

“What happened to them?” he asked.  “Did you kill them?”

The demon smiled slightly.  She shifted form, to one a bit more familiar—that middle-aged woman with steel in her hair.  “The tall one tried to kill me.  The one who grieves his sister’s innocence defended me.  I departed; they will settle it amongst themselves, or not.  Probably one or several will die.”  She sounded utterly unconcerned.  “I will watch them, later, to see if they go, and if they return.  This is a pleasant place to establish a new ground.  I think I will stay.”   The demon stepped aside, fading back into the shadows.  “Carry the message to the thrice-bound.  Tell her that I wish only alliance, and friendship.  I hold secrets about the Unwilling, ones she will need to know if she does not wish to join them.  Tell her.”




Then she was gone.

Unsettled, Jowan dropped one hand to Lorn’s back.  The warhound was looking all around him, cocking his head.  He whuffed once, then shook himself and started towards the entrance to the crumbling temple.  His human was within, waiting for him, said his pricked ears and insouciant trot.

Jowan followed, wondering how in Thedas he had managed to get himself mixed up with demons, after spending so long resisting them.

*****

_Cullen:_

“And the Maker whispered a word into the world: light.”

A bright green-white spark flew from Kathil’s fingertips into the branches of the tree that anchored the great hall of the temple.  It attached itself to a leaf and brightened, hanging there in the company of a number of its peers.  The effect was of a starry canopy near the broken ceiling, the magelights casting a soft, verdant light over the room.

Cullen cleared his throat, and Kathil started and turned.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Mmm.  I don’t know, really.  I was wandering out here to wait for Jowan, and I thought it might be pretty to hang lights in the tree.”  She glanced up into the branches.  “I suppose I went a little overboard, didn’t I?  I was expecting Jowan to walk in and interrupt me two hours ago.”

Two months after they had arrived in the Brecilian Forest, Kathil was starting to look almost at home here.  She wore her hair loose, not even bothering with her usual wind braids, and her overlarge shirt nearly disguised her growing belly.  There were other things that were changing about her, so small that he couldn’t even name them.  

But not the way she looked at him sidelong, as if trying to decide if he were going to vanish or perhaps go mad again.  Not the distance between them that was closed only rarely and briefly.  He had the barest of nervous flutters starting up in his gut—no matter how Zevran insisted that what Cullen had to say to her would be welcomed, there was always the chance that the elf did not know his other lover nearly as well as he thought.

There was no help for it.  _Forge ahead._  “Did you want something, Cullen?” Kathil asked.  “I was about to come get the rest of you to look for Jowan and Lorn.  It’s after dark, something might have happened.”

“I just wanted to talk to you.”  He hesitated.  “It can wait until later, if you want to go look now.”

She cocked her head, fixing him with a sharp look.  “Now I'm curious.  Jowan and Lorn have been gone for this long, they can wait a few more minutes.”

“Ah.  Well, then—”  He broke off, and took a breath.  “I know it’s been a long time, but...you said there was a place for me, as a friend or as a...father.  I figure that this child needs as many parents as she or he can get.  I’ll stand up for you.  If the offer is still open, that is.”

She frowned, raising one hand slightly as if to ward off some trouble. “Wait.  Did someone put you up to this?  Zev, maybe?”

Cullen shook his head.  “Zevran’s been talking to me about it, but the decision is mine.  I know it took me a long time to get there, but I had some things I needed to work out.”

Kathil took a step back.  Her hair fell to cover the scar on the left side of her face, and she turned her head a bit so he could not see it at all.  “You’ve barely had anything to say to me for months.  I mean, the offer is still open, but you do realize that it involves actually talking to me, right?”

In that moment, her expression was unguarded as it ever got, the tone of her voice likely laid more bare than she’d intended.  He’d surprised her.  Worse than that, she was wary of him in a way that she’d never been before.  He could almost hear her thought, _and what about the next time you take it into your fool head that you hate mages?_

“I realize,” he said, and gave her a rueful smile.  “I...just didn’t want—”

_Didn’t want to say yes when I really meant maybe.  Didn’t want to be friends with you.  Didn’t want to love you.  Didn’t want to face the idea of losing you again.  Didn’t want to let you hurt me again.  _

_Didn’t want to hurt you again._

He heard her sharp intake of breath and knew that his thoughts had been written all over his face.  She pressed her lips together.  “Well.  I think I’m willing to be friends, Cullen.  If you are.”

And when she said _friends_ he wasn’t precisely certain what she meant.  But it was enough to take it at face value.  The gentle light shed by the magelights in the branches cast strange shadows on both of them.  “I’m willing.  More than.  Kathil—”

They reached for each other in the same moment, and he folded her into his arms.  “You’re _cold_,” he said.  “Why aren’t you wearing a cloak?”

She chuckled.  “Typical.  Reconcile with the man and the first thing he does is fussbudget me.  For your information, I _was_ about to go get my cloak when you showed up—”  She stopped with a surprised noise, almost a hiccup.

“What?” he asked, concerned.

“The baby’s started to move over the last few days,” she said.  “It’s a very odd sensation.”

Cullen’s breath caught in his throat.  “Really?  Do you think—can anyone other than you feel it yet?”

“Good question,” she said.  She twisted a bit and turned around in his arms, then took his hands in hers and placed them on her belly, under her shirt.  Her skin was cool, but as it always did it warmed quickly under his hands.

It was so strange, this intimacy.  It was not as if they had suddenly slipped back into how they were three months ago.  But at the same time, there was something there, some trust that had survived the Tower.  Her belly curved beneath his hands, scarred skin with firmness beneath.  “Let me try something,” Kathil said.  “He seems to like it when I use magic.”  She muttered a phrase and Cullen felt the Veil tear just slightly.  With a gesture, Kathil sent another magespark to join the rest above them.

And—

_There._

Just the slightest motion under the palm of his right hand, a slight stirring, a tickling as if a butterfly beat its wings beneath Kathil’s skin.

The world snapped into sudden, perfect focus around Cullen.  This was _real_.  This place, real; this child, real.  He wasn’t sure if he’d believed it before, but now he very much did.  The sensation of movement repeated briefly, then subsided.  

He was left with a sense of startled wonder, a heart-seizing realization that this was _his child_ he had just felt move.  Not a dream-daughter, not an illusion wrought by a demon, but a new person who would live and breathe and laugh and weep, who waking would not whisk away from him.  Not a shadow, but substance.

And now he understood what the demon had tried to take from him.  (Tried.  Succeeded.  At least until now, when faced with what was inevitably _reality_, the demon’s gambit finally failed.)  He took a breath, tried to speak, but there were no words.

“Funny thing,” Kathil said.  She made no move to pull away from Cullen.  “I was thinking about something Shaw told me, when we were traveling to the Tower.  He said that sustained spells require a source of power.  With Tranquil, it’s the lyrium they use to brand them with.  With Templars, the lyrium they require you to take.  With mages, our own native connection to the Fade.  Which is something that Templars can cut off, temporarily.”

“And?” Cullen asked.  He couldn’t see her face, but her body was slowly relaxing against his.

“The spells they put on us that take our ability to have children and block our early memories are sustained spells.  A Templar can disable them.  It’s rare that Circle mages get pregnant, because it takes a Templar in the immediate vicinity, a cleansing at the right time, and it probably helps if you're actually sleeping with the Templar in question.”  She took a long breath.  “Which means, whether or not you fathered this child, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant without your help.”

“Are you glad?” he asked.  “That you did?”

There was a silence between them then.  “I am,” she said at last.  “Despite all the trouble, I am very, very glad.”

Something else she’d said nagged at him.  “So, you think it’s a boy?”

Kathil laughed.  The edges of the large room gave back the sound tentatively as a quiet echo.  “I think that the Maker has a sense of humor, and it would only serve me right if it were a boy.  So it probably will be.  I am doomed to be outnumbered by males, I think.”

“I don’t know,” Cullen said.  “I keep on dreaming about baby girls.”

But before she could reply, there was a scraping sound that came from the outer hall.  “That must be Jowan,” Kathil said, and she pulled herself out of his arms.  “You two are late enough!” she called.  

Lorn burst through the doorway and ran towards Kathil, giving an urgent bark.  Jowan followed, face pale and eyes wide.  “The demon,” he said.  “From the Tower.  She’s here.  She’s found us.”

He did not have to say _which_ demon.

They already knew.

*****

_Kathil:_

There was a heavy pounding coming from the double doors that led from the werewolf lair to the rest of the temple.

It had been a long, nervous night, and the morning had dawned gray and tremulous.  It was likely that the demon had been here all along and had either simply chosen not to reveal herself or had lacked the strength to manifest.  That didn’t make knowing that she was out there any easier to bear.  

And that the demon had taken on the form of the Lady of the Forest was even more disturbing.  The Lady had started out as a demon bound to a mortal form.  Over the centuries, she had changed into something not quite demon, not quite spirit, but some of each with a bit of mortality mixed in besides.

What the Lady had truly been, Kathil didn’t know.  Evidently, though, she had left an impression on the old road outside the temple, a form and function that a sufficiently motivated demon could shape herself to fit.  And possibly the most hair-raising part was the despair demon’s continued insistence that she was not their enemy, that she wanted to be allies.

_Bang-bang-bang!_

She was headed towards the door, Lorn and Fiann coursing next to her.  “For the love of Andraste, if anyone is in there, let me in!” called a muffled female voice from the other side of the door.  

Where had she heard that voice before?  _There were Templars, led by a woman,_ Jowan had said.  He’d described what the despair demon had done, setting the small group of knights against each others’ throats, as well as the warning he had tried to give them.  She wasn’t sure, in his boots, that she would have done much different.

Lorn had reached the door, and snuffled at the crack beneath it.  He wagged his tail cautiously, and from that Kathil knew that at the very least this wasn’t the demon come for a visit.  Fiann copied the older Mabari’s sniffing, and began to bounce around, panting with abrupt happiness.  The lady-knight, the one who didn’t like the pine-mage!

There were times when being able to understand the warhounds’ substitute for speech proved entirely unenlightening.  But Kathil unbarred the door anyway, and shoved it open a little way.

Dark eyes stared at her through the crack.  “Well?  Are you going to open the door or not?”  

_This is a bad idea._  But she pushed the door open anyway, then took a sharp breath.

It was Ser Rylock, the Templar who had returned Anders to the Tower.  For her part, Rylock was staring at Kathil in disbelief.  “_Warden_?  What are you doing here?”

“Long story.  Come in, Rylock.  Bar the door behind you.  The dragons have learned to avoid this area, but sometimes the dragonlings forget.”  She stepped back, the dogs coming with her.  Fiann’s tail was wagging frantically, Lorn’s a bit more slowly.  She was about to call the others, but they had appeared in the room as if summoned.  Jowan looked distressed, Cullen suspicious, and Zevran was deceptively relaxed.  

That his hands strayed towards the hidden blades at the small of his back was no coincidence, however.

“What made you think there were people down here, anyway?” she asked.

For her part, Rylock was glancing at each of them in turn.  “Monsters don’t usually build corrals for their mules,” she said.  “And there were quite a few tracks in the snow, most of them made by boots.  The stairs that led down here were the cleanest.  I took a chance that there was someone living here.  What _is_ this place?”

“It’s an old elven temple, used to house werewolves.  Now us, temporarily.  I think the only one of us you haven’t met is Jowan.”  She motioned at him.  “Jowan is a Grey Warden as well.”

“Jowan.  There was a blood mage of that name who escaped the Tower...”  Rylock looked thoughtful.

_You _would_ have to have a good memory._  “He’s a Warden now.”  She made sure she put a good amount of chill into her voice.  Evidently too much; the Templar started, nearly shying away from her.  Rylock was not someone who startled easily, Kathil would wager.  “You might as well come into the kitchen and sit down.”

She led them through the hall with the tree in it and into the kitchen.  Their makeshift kettle was on the hearth, and Jowan went to make tea.  The water-heating spell was a minor one, but still Kathil saw Rylock raise an eyebrow at him, evidently feeling the minor tear in the Veil he created.  “So what brings you here?” Kathil asked as Jowan silently handed the Templar a steaming cup.  “We’re rather at the back end of nowhere here.”  _On purpose,_ she added silently.

“My normal posting is Little Oakford,” Rylock said.  Kathil remembered the town; it was about twenty miles from the border of the Brecilian Forest.  “We had a message come through that there was an apostate who’d showed his face in Lothering and headed east.  We thought he might have come along the West Road, and decided to increase the time we spent out on patrol.  A few days ago, we ran into an elf, who said he’d seen not one but two mages heading into the Brecilian Forest.”

“One of the Dalish?” Zevran asked.

“I...don’t think so,” Rylock said.  “He was dressed like a farmer, at least, and didn’t have any tattoos.”  She didn’t look entirely certain, little lines appearing between her brows.  “He acted a little odd, but many people do.  Anyway, that report along with why we were out in the first place led me to believe that there were apostates sheltering in the forest.  I and my patrol went in.  We came across a little girl who asked us for aid.  Those I commanded wanted to turn back and leave the forest, but I wouldn’t hear of it.”

For a moment, the Templar looked shaken, but then her countenance firmed.  “Everything seemed well until that night.  I found a note on my bedroll that said that the little girl we had found was a demon.  I...believed it.  There were too many little things wrong.  I went to try to kill her.  Jeph, who had befriended her, objected.  It came to blows.”  Rylock took a deep breath.  She looked tired, and worn.  “The girl disappeared.  When all was said and done, I was the only one left.  Rather than spend the rest of the night at the campsite, I decided to try to make the edge of the forest.  I must have gotten turned around in the dark, because when the sun rose I found myself near the entrance of this place.”  She shook her head.  “I never really believed the stories about this place.  I do now.  There is something out there that does not mean any living thing well.”

“So we’ve heard,” Kathil remarked dryly.  “The Brecilian Forest has been haunted for longer than anyone can remember.  Well, drink your tea.  We can escort you to the edge of the forest.”

“You are serious?” Zevran inquired, raising an eyebrow.  “It seems to me...”

She gave him a warning look.  “The _Templar_ was merely the recipient of bad information,” she said.  “Rylock, I fear the so-called apostate in Lothering was me, though I’m amused by the fact that I have apparently turned into a man.  I had a bit of an argument with a gang of would-be toughs while I was there.  I humiliated them and left.  I would appreciate it if you didn’t report my whereabouts to your superiors.”

Rylock looked suspicious.  “You Grey Wardens think you can flout our laws and get away with it.  You’ve just confessed to being an apostate.”

Kathil bit back her first response, which was fair obscene.  “The Circle of Magi has formally released its oversight of me.  But if it makes you feel better, I have a Templar personally watching me.”  She gestured at Cullen.  “I would also warn you, Rylock, that the Wardens have very little patience with the Chantry attempting to meddle with one of their own.  Let’s keep this pleasant, shall we?”

The dark look hadn’t left the Templar’s face.  “You didn’t look surprised that there’s a demon lurking in this forest.”

“I wasn’t.  Jowan spotted it yesterday.  And, by the way, the fact that he did so is the reason you’re still alive and not as dead as your fellows.”  And _that_ had been a surprise, that Jowan of all people would do anything even remotely like a kindness for a Templar.  She supposed that on Jowan’s personal scale of dislike, Templars ranked slightly above demons.  _Only very slightly, I'd wager._  “The note was from him.  While he probably could have attempted to warn you more blatantly, he couldn’t know you would believe him when he said he was a Grey Warden.”

  

  1. “And I don’t think the demon would have taken well to me interfering,” Jowan added.  He was sitting on the edge of the hearth, knees drawn up, back to the fire.  His dark hair fell into his eyes, making him look more like a sullen boy than a man of seven and twenty.   “Point her to the forest’s edge and let her go, Kathil.”
  



“I could help you fight the demon,” Rylock offered.  

_She wants to talk,_ Jowan had told Kathil last night.  _She says there are things you need to know about the Unwilling.  Are you really in danger of becoming one of them?_

“Thank you for the offer, but I don’t think so.  You have duties to get back to, and we will be fine on our own.”  She kept her voice neutral.  Pleasant.  Pretending for a moment that the woman who sat across from her was not disaster waiting to happen.  At least she had come now, and not two months from now when it would be immediately apparent why they were hiding in the back end of nowhere.

Still.  The wrong word to the wrong person, and they would likely have more company than the forest could keep out.  If Rylock died here, it would be assumed that the forest had gotten her along with the rest of her detail.

_I am a little tired of killing people for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time._

The Templar was starting to look suspicious again.  “I know the Wardens have secrets, but—the demon.  Surely you _do_ plan to kill it?”

_Would you try to kill an avalanche, or a thunderstorm?_  She took a sharp breath.  “Of course,” she lied.  “Of course we are.”

Rylock didn’t quite look like she believed it, but she also looked like she wasn’t sure _what_ to believe.  The look on her face was darkening, and Kathil tried not to grit her teeth.  The problem with the Chantry is that it taught those in its care to take a very dim view of anything they did not understand.  

And there were just so many secrets in this temple, in this kitchen that had been used first by the elves who lived here and then the werewolves who had followed.  “Zevran, Cullen.  Could you take the good Templar to the edge of the forest?”

They both nodded and got to their feet.  Rylock stayed seated.  “What is going on here?” she said, her voice pitched low.  “You are very eager to be rid of me, Warden.”

Kathil shook her head, trying to compose a reply—and Cullen stepped forward and planted both of his hands on the table, interposing himself between Rylock and Kathil.  “The _question_, Ser Rylock, is whether you really want to know.  We’re Grey Wardens.  Sometimes the business of defeating the darkspawn asks things of us that the Chantry would just as soon rather not know about.  Do you understand?”

Rylock and Cullen exchanged a long look.  “You’re still a Templar,” Rylock said.  “Do you...approve...of whatever is going on here?”

Cullen’s shoulders tensed.  “I believe it is necessary.  Being a Warden has given me perspective that I didn’t have as a Templar.  We all have a duty.  The one that the Wardens shoulder is heavier than that of the Templars—and a lot more complicated.”

Rylock was silent for a moment, and then inclined her head.  “I envied the Wardens their freedoms, once.  I’m not sure I do any more.”

“Don’t.”  That was Jowan.  “It comes at a price.”

The Templar stood abruptly, her chair screeching on the stone floor.  “So I see.  Let us go, then.”  She put her cup down on the table with a thump.

Cullen and Zevran escorted the Templar out, Zevran giving Kathil a long, searching look from the doorway before disappearing.  Kathil say back in her chair with a long sigh.  “Are you sure that was wise?” Jowan asked.  He still sat on the hearth.  “Maybe we should have killed her.”

“And maybe you should have let the demon have her,” Kathil said.  “Why didn’t you?”

He twisted his mouth, wrinkled his nose.  “Because I'm going soft in the head?”

“Well, me, too.”  She raised her cup to her mouth, took a sip of tea.  When she swallowed, warmth spread down her throat into her belly.  “We have bigger things to worry about than a stray Templar.  Like a despair demon sitting on our doorstep.”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”  Jowan rubbed his forehead.  “What are you going to do?”

“Talk to her.”  At Jowan’s sharp look, she set her cup down and frowned.  “I know.  But we don’t have a convenient troop of Templars to close off the old road here, even if it’s possible.”  Lorn got up from his place near the fire and came over to her, resting his great head on her lap.  She looked down at him, passing her fingers over the slick fur on his head.  “So that leaves running, hiding, and talking.  Hiding means we get hungry, and I don’t know about you but I’m reasonably sure that dragons don’t make for good eating.  Running...well, if there was anywhere else I thought we’d be even remotely safe, we’d have gone there.  So talking it is.  The demon wants something from me.  Maybe I can negotiate.”

“Because making bargains with demons always ends _so_ well.”

“I didn’t say it was a _good_ idea.  I just don’t have any better ones.”  Her words should have been edged, with a bitter bite at the back of her throat.  Instead, they were soft, laced with exhaustion.  Lorn swiped his tongue across her fingers, and she chuckled.  By the fire, Jowan shifted, and pushed his hair out of his eyes.  He looked at her, not speaking, not offering any ideas of his own.

She was _tired_.  She’d been angry at her old friend, resented what he had done and what his actions had done to her and to Lily, but for the past few months, her anger had been steadily wearing down.  Now she found that she barely had the energy to summon up a sulk, much less a good snit.

Kathil muttered and a magespark came into being, balancing on the fingers of her free hand.  She flicked her fingertips, sending the magespark towards Jowan.  There was a trick to transferring the spell from one mage to another.  As she felt the subtle pressure of her fellow mage’s power, she gave the magespark a bit of a push and then let go.

The magespark continued its arc, landing on the back of Jowan’s hand.  It had been a pale green when it had left her fingers; under his control, it blushed orange.  He looked down at it, then tossed it back at her.

It took another few passes for them to stabilize the color of the magespark.  More to extend the range where the edges of their power met and meshed with each other.  All done in silence.

She finally caught the magespark in the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around it, gently extinguishing the light.  “Do you remember the night after we were first taught how to do that?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Jowan’s mouth.  “How could I forget?  Everyone tossing magesparks from the girls’ side to the boys’ side and back.  Looked like a swarm of crazy fireflies, not that we knew about fireflies.  And then we got a lecture from the Templar on duty about ‘unnecessary magic’—”

“And his voice _cracked_ right in the middle of this scary speech!  He ran like a rabbit once we all started laughing.”  She scratched behind Lorn’s ears, and the warhound closed his eyes and groaned in appreciation.  “You know, growing up in the Tower had its good points sometimes.”

“On occasion.  It did.”

In the dim of the kitchen, Jowan’s shadow stretched over the floor.  Kathil remembered lighting not just one but three magesparks and throwing them at Jowan, and her fellow apprentice catching them easily and sending them back.  They hadn’t been the best students in their classes—though if they’d spent as much time studying as they did planning tricks to play on the Templars, they might have done better—but they had excelled at cooperative magic.  

She remembered that night.  She’d barely been able to see him in the flickering light of the flying magesparks, but she could feel his power, how their strengths were complementary to each other.  She had been convinced that night that they were going to be best friends forever, that some day they would get out of the Tower and go on all kinds of adventures together.  

_And look where we ended up.  Out of the Tower.  Having adventures, if this counts as an adventure._

There was so much that little Kathil Amell hadn’t imagined was possible, back then.

Silence still reigned in the kitchen, but it had turned companionable.  She drank her tea, petted her dog, and tried not to think about the demon who was waiting outside the temple...or what Rylock might get up to once she reached civilization once more.

******

_Zevran:_

Their snow crunched under their boots, the crust on it protesting creakily.  Their breath hung white on the frigid air.

Winter in Ferelden was always so; chapped lips, hair that would not stay in place but rose sparking to wind around whatever it could reach, fingers clumsy with cold.  (There were compensations; sleeping ensconced in a pile of furs with a warm naked body pressed fervently against his own, the way the chill put a blush of color on every cheek.)  The natives were used to it.

Zevran was not.  Would _never_ be.

Just at the moment, though, he had more on his mind than the cold.  He eyed the Templar who was walking next to Cullen.  It seemed even the company of a human who had left her order in disgrace was better than that of an elf.

_Touchy.  Tch._

They wound through a narrow path between hills.  The left hill was rather more like a cliff than the term _hill_ implied, but he knew that the top of the right hill was a favored ambush spot for those few predators who thought that armed people might be a tasty snack.  They passed through, and the forest was still around them.  Not even a breath of wind blew.

“Our camp is—was—right up here,” Rylock said, and lengthened her stride, leaving Cullen behind.

Cullen dropped back to walk next to Zevran as the Templar disappeared around a bend in the path.  “I know that look,” he said.  “Don’t kill her.”

Zevran raised an eyebrow at the ginger-haired man.  “She poses a direct threat to us.  Even if she does not mean to betray us, a careless word might bring trouble down on our heads.  Best to eliminate the danger, no?”  He smiled, dropping a hand to the hilt of his longer blade.  “Do not worry.  She will not feel a thing.”

The snow creaked slightly as Cullen’s jaw hardened.  “Kathil let her live.”

“The Warden has the occasional twinge of blindness, does she not?”  They’d stopped now; from up ahead came the sounds of a tent being broken down.  “She was Tower-raised, and that comes with a certain amount of...squeamishness.”  Though she did not show it often, except in the way it influenced her decisions.

Like coming to the far end of Ferelden to hide when she found herself caught between the Chantry and something she wanted very badly indeed.

“You think she’s going to be happy when she hears?” Cullen asked.

“Will she hear, my friend?” he asked.  “Or will we merely return and stay silent, and let her believe what she wishes to believe?”

From ahead, there was a clatter and a muttered curse as Rylock evidently dropped something, possibly on her foot.  The color was high on Cullen’s face, and he was visibly restraining himself, trying to find something to say that wasn’t a shout.  Zevran knew just how far he could provoke Cullen, just as he did everyone they traveled with.  Needling Cullen was a far _safer_ hobby than doing the same to either of the mages, after all.  He would sort himself out momentarily.

But in the silence between heartbeats, before Cullen found his voice and before Rylock dropped anything _else_, a familiar sound reached Zevran’s ears.

_Click-click-click._  Beads strung on the ends of narrow braids, ticking together as the owner of them moved.

He whirled, drawing his blade without thought.  

Silence.

_I fear you, love, in the sharp nights of your smile._

Cullen was watching him with a quiet and careful gaze.  Zevran slammed his dagger home in the sheath with a savage rattle.  “Let us go help the Templar finish packing,” he said, glancing one last time up the hill, into trees so thick that they would hide any watcher.  “I do not wish to be out after night falls.”

If Cullen questioned Zevran’s abrupt change of heart, he did not ask.  He merely nodded and turned, leading the way down the path.  They would be at the edge of the forest in two hours, and back at the temple in five.  And Zevran would put the clicking of glass beads out of his mind again, and memories of blood black in the dim of a tiny, close room, creeping across a rough floor.

It did not—could not—matter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand we have officially achieved novel length on Quiet Foxes. (This is simultaneously a "go me!" and "*facepalm*", for various reasons.)  
> And what, you expected me to resist the urge to bring back Ser Rylock? Ha. After all, upon realizing who she was in Awakenings, I totally went "OMG female Templar SQUEE!" Yes, I'm weird.


	14. The Veil That Keeps Me Blind

_My hands are cold tonight_   
_but the sky is bright with stars_   
_and I'm tearing through the veil that keeps me blind_   
_And it seems the more I'm wrong_   
_the more that I am right..._

_-Vienna Teng, "Mission Street"_

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_Kathil:_

The moon shone through the trees that ringed the temple's entrance clearing, casting razor-sharp shadows across the trampled snow. Kathil stopped just beyond the doorway, eyes seeking movement, anything that might betray a demonic presence.

No such luck. Beside her, Lorn whined inquiringly. She had insisted that Zevran and the rest stay inside; she had not been able to convince the warhound to do likewise. Lorn, when he got stubborn, was an immovable object. So he was beside her as she stepped out of the shadow of the temple, seeking a demon.

"You might as well show yourself," she called. Her voice echoed oddly off the trees. "I know you're watching."

"Clever child," a voice whispered just by her ear. Kathil shied, and badly; the demon strode from the shadows next to her and into the middle of the clearing. Lorn snarled, but stayed beside Kathil. The demon wore the Lady of the Forest's form, roots twisted around her body like some jagged mockery of an embrace. "You've decided to talk to me."

"I have. So, talk. You said that you have information about the Unwilling."

"I do, at that. Ah, mortals. You are all in such a _hurry_." She smiled. The expression looked strange on the Lady's beautiful, dead face. "Shall we not exchange pleasantries first? I am given to understand this is what mortals do with each other when they meet."

A certain terrible suspicion was percolating though Kathil's mind. "Where did you learn about mortals, anyway?"

"The Unwilling, before they were changed. They brought books with them into our world, and taught us how to decipher them. Not to mention that I have been watching your kind for such a very long time." She swayed and her outline changed. Still nude, but now she was Sati, as Sati had been the week before she had gone upstairs with a pair of Templars and come down a corpse. "To business, then, if we must. You help me, I help you. That is the nature of these transactions, is it not? _Chouette_."

Kathil pressed the knuckles of one hand to her mouth hard, and tasted the wool of her mitten. The endearment was Sati's, but the tone was all demon, empty and cold. "What do you think you have that I could possibly want?" she asked.

"What else but information?" Sati's voice-_the demon's voice_-turned silky and soft. She drummed her fingers on her chest, just below the ragged wound that had just appeared over her heart. "I know many things that you may wish to know. Such as how one becomes one of the Unwilling, and how one might avoid the same. Such as what might happen if you do not become one of them. And such as why you no longer have access to one of your primal magic types."

Her throat closed, and she stared at the demon in the guise of someone she had once loved with every inch of her, body and soul. "You know about that." It came out a near-whisper, syllables strangled. She'd been trying not to worry about it. Trying to pretend that she was_choosing_ to have Jowan relight the fire when it went out, choosing to practice using flint and steel in the few private moments she had these days.

"I do." Her smile glinted in the moonlight, and then she shifted forms once more. This one was clothed, the same steel-haired woman Kathil had seen her as before. "All knowledge available to you with some...negotiation." She smiled.

_Bargaining with demons. One of the few things I said I'd never do._ Then she blinked, frowning. The middle-aged woman was no one she knew-and the only form the demon had taken so far in this conversation that she did not. "Who is that?" She jerked her chin at the demon. "I don't recognize that form."

"Do you not? How short the memories of mortals are." A shadow of disappointment passed over her round face. "Perhaps this you will recognize." The demon's features rippled in the moonlight, skin smoothing, her merchant clothes changing to robes. Dark hair-it was impossible to tell exactly what color-spilled down her back in tangled ringlets.

Kathil swallowed. "Sweet Andraste."

"Precisely." The full lips curved. There was something strange about her eyes, something Kathil would have needed to be far closer to see clearly. "She who swallowed fire and sang compulsion. You mortals evidently like to think of her as a young woman. But this-" and she shifted again, back to the older version of Andraste- "is how her husband remembered her best and most fondly. And possibly with more than a little guilt."

"You knew Maferath." Her fingers curled in her mittens, cold fingertip seeking the slight warmth of her palms.

"Knew? _Knew_ is such a...precise word. Say, instead, that he spoke in his sleep, and his dreams were troubled." Her eyes narrowed. "The thief brought my daughter to this woman. He made her swallow the power, and every moment after that her body was fighting a losing battle against it. The only reason that she survived long as long as she did was because she was something...akin to a mage. Though not in the same way that you are. There are few words in any mortal tongues for what she was. I am not sure she knew very much, herself." The demon spread her arms. "I never knew her, of course. She avoided places where our worlds rub up against each other. The power burned through the barrier quickly, so she had to keep moving in order to avoid the barrier opening. My daughter, attempting to return home." That last was said with no small amount of pride.

Kathil took a shaky breath. Lorn leaned comfortingly against her leg, glancing up at her. "The Voice of the Golden City. Who you claim was _stolen_."

"Only the truth, thrice-bound. Only the truth. Have you ever wondered _why_ the denizens of my world hunger for pieces of yours? We were beautiful, once. Our world is ever-shifting, but even the least of us had the power to hold a corner of it steady. Now..." She shook her head. "Our Golden City is charred and broken, its power a hole at the heart of what you call the Fade. Darkness has claimed our world. Those of us who are lesser in power have lost their minds and have become nothing but hungers, desperate for a moment when the world is stable around them. Some of those who have kept their wits try to follow my daughter into your world. Others disdain it. Still others conceive of a fascination with a particular mortal. I have chosen to work to get the Voice back."

"Andraste is dead." In the woods, an owl called, _hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo._ "Your...daughter...is gone."

"Is she? She has not returned to us. So I believe that she is still in this world, still bound, trapped. The Unwilling attempted to retrieve her, but their attempt went wrong. Badly so."

"The darkspawn," she said, and her heart was shuddering in her chest. "They did not become the darkspawn. They _created_ them."

"Even so." The demon smiled, as if Kathil were a particularly stupid child who had just done something approaching clever. "Unfortunately, the Unwilling did not know that the song of those beings trapped beneath the earth was much like the song of the Voice, and much louder. And they made mistakes in their haste to retrieve the Voice."

Suspicious, Kathil asked, "Why were they in such a hurry?"

The demon tilted her head, a gesture strange on her current form. Then she shifted once more, to the dark-skinned elven woman with braided hair who Kathil had seen once before, in the Harrowing Chamber. "I may have implied that retrieving the Voice would free them from our world."

"Would it?"

She shook her head slowly. The beads on the ends of her braids clicked and settled, and Kathil momentarily saw the tip of one pointed ear. "It is unlikely. Over time, the Unwilling have changed. Both more and less than what they were."

Kathil took a deep breath. While this was interesting, it was not getting her any closer to what she had come here for. "So. What do you want from me, demon?"

The creature sniffed. "So your kind terms those like me. Neither accurate nor flattering, if I understand the word in your tongue correctly. The terms are so: I have need of a pair of hands in your world, to do the work of finding the Voice. You led the effort to deprive me of a home ground; this one will do, but it is isolated and it will take me some time before I can manifest fully more than briefly. Do as I ask, and I will give you the information you will need to know."

She pulled her cloak more closely around her, giving the demon a hard look. "What sorts of things?"

"Nothing too strenuous. I need information more reliable than what I can sift from the memories of dreamers. I have had occasion to work with mortals before; I understand that you have certain...compunctions." Her dark eyes glinted as she narrowed them. "I may occasionally need you to make an arrangement or two for me. And perhaps a spell cast."

Kathil took a deep breath. _Am I seriously considering agreeing?_ "I have conditions. I am a Grey Warden first and foremost. I won't do anything that's in conflict with the goal of eliminating the darkspawn."

"The Twisted-" the fact that she was using it as a title was clearly audible- "interfere with my search for my daughter. Eliminate them all you like."

"All right. I also won't facilitate you gaining more of a foothold in this world, and if you possess me or anyone, our agreement is over. No funny business, no tricks, and no lies. Agreed?"

"Mmmm. I would not usually agree to such terms, child." She shifted where she stood, and her beads sounded like shushing spring rain. "But this ground is adequate for the moment, and I have never had any interest in taking a mortal body. Agreed."

Kathil breathed out. Unease was twisting her gut, telling her that she had possibly just made a very large mistake. "So who is this?" she asked, nodding at the demon. "Let me guess, some ancient Dalish Keeper."

The demon smiled, and rolled her shoulders. Her clothing-leathers that left little to the imagination-creaked, then vanished. She was narrow-hipped, perfectly proportioned, and blood sheeted down over her chest from a great wound in her neck. The sheet separated into rivulets below her breasts, dripping down her side and into the snow, where it vanished. "I take my forms from the minds of those who see me," she said. "This form was important to the elf who lurks in the shadows behind you."

_Zevran._ She gritted her teeth. "This must be Rinna, then." She should have guessed; the woman was beautiful and had the sort of musculature that acrobats and assassins usually gained. _And she's an elf._ She found herself reaching up to touch the scar on the left side of her face, and forced her hand down. "Zev, you might as well come out."

There was a soft sound behind Kathil, and then she felt rather than saw Zevran ghost into place beside her. Lorn gave a snort of recognition. "I thought you might need help," he said, voice muffled a bit by his hood. "So, the deal is struck?"

"It is." She gave the demon a sour look. "We can take care of ourselves. No accosting travelers."

"I make no promises." The demon smiled again, and her body shimmered and shrunk down, becoming a human woman not much larger than a child. Her gaze darted about, seemingly randomly. "My best interest lies in guarding your life, after all. I will tell you a few things, and when you have done some of my work I will tell you some more."

"Start with the Unwilling, and how I can avoid becoming one of them," Kathil said.

"Ah. That." The demon shifted again, growing taller. White hair spilled down her back, her lips reddish-black in the moonlight, her eyes black holes in her face. She looked vaguely familiar; Kathil remembered seeing this form in the Harrowing Chamber, but it was something beyond that. "You have left a trail behind you on the old roads, thrice-bound. Blood and sweat, yes, but something more besides. You hold one of two fragments of what was once the old god Urthemiel. It has left...traces."

"And?" Kathil asked. She felt Zevran glance at her. "What does that have to do with the Unwilling?"

"Nothing, and everything. It was how the Unwilling found you, why they are drawn to you. They, too, were recipients of gifts of the Old Gods. You are what they once were, though I have to say that they were far more interesting than you are, and much more polite." The demon pursed her perfect mouth. "But no matter. What does matter is that if you wish to become one of them, it is simply a matter of fully crossing the barrier between our worlds with your physical body. If you do not wish to become one of them, you must stay in your own world. You walk the line between worlds, thrice-bound. Do not think it will be so easy to stay on your own side."

"And you mentioned something that happens if I don't become one of them."

"Ah. That." The lovely, strange face tilted slightly up to the moonlight. "It is anyone's guess, really. Perhaps the poison in your blood will drive you mad as it did Urthemiel. Or perhaps the shadow of the Old God will take your sanity and change your magic. All that is certain is that it is changing you, thrice-bound. Mortals caught in bindings such as yours generally die of it." The demon's lips curved slightly. "Would it not be better to choose immortality?"

"Grey Wardens do not live to be old," Kathil said, then drew a shaking breath. "I've known that since a few months after my Joining."

"Do, do not; it makes little difference to me. You mortals are such brief sparks in the darkness. Mortals like you, who have become part of the Twisted, even briefer. But find the Voice, thrice-bound. Do something that truly matters with your little life."

Horror finally spilled into irritation, and Kathil's chest was tight, something cold burning beneath her breastbone. "My name is Kathil. Kathil Amell."

"And that I know as well." Her voice changed, becoming softer and taking on the rounded feel of the accent of the south of Ferelden. "Go see your father, little one. Mama will be down in a moment."

Then the demon was gone as if she had been made of shadows and moonlight, an illusion shattered by a glance. Kathil felt as if there was not enough air in all the world to fill her lungs. _My mother._

She'd been beautiful. And she had probably been younger than Kathil was now when she had fallen down the stairs at Seahold, breaking her neck. There was a hand on her back, and then an arm sliding around her shoulders. She leaned into Zevran's wiry body, and Lorn whined and rubbed his head against her thigh.

"We should go inside." She forced the words from between lips gone cold and numb. "And what were you doing out here, anyway? I thought I told you not to follow me."

"And I occasionally do not listen to very well, yes?" His tone was deliberately light, the soft music of his accent jangling against her ears. "I thought you might need some backup."

Lorn snorted. She had _me_.

"But of course. I thought simply that _more_ might be in order." Lorn snorted, doubtful. "So. A deal has been struck, has it? I cannot imagine that this will end well."

"No. It likely will not." Kathil dropped a hand to Lorn's head, ruffling his ears with her mitten. "So. That was Rinna, was it? She was beautiful."

"She was. And the other-Sati, yes? The girl who disappeared."

"Failed her Harrowing, yes." _And now I have seen the ghost I am always in competition with._ It wasn't fair, really; Rinna had died months before Kathil had met Zevran. Trying to prove she was better than someone now years dead was foolish.

And yet. Rinna _had_ been beautiful, more than Kathil would ever be. And she had been elven, and in the same line of work as Zevran.

_And he also participated in her death,_ she reminded herself. Perhaps it was good that she was little like Zevran's ghost. Still. Rinna would always be fixed in his mind as she was just before she died. She would be forever young, forever laughing. _Strange. I don't have a problem with any of the other living lovers he's had. Just the dead one._

She took a shaking breath and tried to quell the unreasonable but not easily dismissed gnawing feeling in her chest. "You don't have to be involved, Zev. You can leave, take Cullen with you. There aren't any promises between us. There never have been."

She felt an abrupt tension in his body. "And do you not think that perhaps I would enjoy having a promise to be held to?"

Her mouth had gone dry, her chapped lips stinging as she licked them. "We agreed that freedom was important-"

"Perhaps it is time to revisit that agreement," he interrupted. "Since things have changed."

Despite the fact that their words were mild, the tone of them was not, and Kathil found herself bewildered at the turn in the conversation. "Wait. Are we fighting about whether we're together? I thought we'd settled that."

He tightened his arm around her shoulders. "I believe we are discussing whether or not to make things permanent, so to speak."

Oh. _Oh._. "Zevran, are you asking me to marry you?"

"That depends." He gave her a sidelong glance. "Would you say yes?"

She quirked the scarred side of her mouth. "If I thought I could find a priest who would marry us, I'd have dragged you into a chantry already. But since mages aren't allowed to marry..."

"Ah. An amusing tidbit for you about that." He gave her a half smile. "I stopped by the Grand Cathedral in Denerim while we were there, and had that charming researcher look through the books of law. It turns out that the prohibition on mages marrying has the force of custom behind it, but not law."

Zevran's words hit her with a force that nearly knocked the wind out of her-both the revelation, and the fact that he had gone to check _before_ she had even known she was pregnant. "So we just have to find a priest who can ignore the custom."

"And one who does not take quite such a dim view of intermarriages between elves and humans. The Dalish are sorely unreasonable on that score. Tch. Unfortunate."

"You have to admit they have reason," she said, and her voice softened. "Zev...I didn't expect this. You don't have to."

He took her shoulders in his hands, turned her so that she was facing him. "_Mi alma,_ it is precisely _because_ you do not expect it that I offer. I choose this."

The words were so simple, so powerful. _I choose this._

Such a small thing, to change the world so profoundly.

Kathil put her arms around Zevran, and they pulled each other into a tight embrace. She found unexpected tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "I choose this, as well," she said into his hair, then breathed in his scent of leather tinged with stone. "And Cullen?"

"Him, I thought we could talk about later," he said. His breath tickled her earlobe. "Things are not yet settled between the two of you, and we yet have the rest of the winter to survive."

"True enough." She rested her chin on his shoulder. Holding on to Zevran was restoring some measure of calm to her, a calm sorely tested by her conversation with the demon. There were so many consequences of that conversation that she wasn't yet ready to think about.

_Later._

"Let's go inside," she said. "I'm half frozen through, and probably so are you and Lorn."

They descended the darkened stairs into the temple, leaving the demon-haunted forest behind for the moment. Tonight, there would be a warm fire, a nest made of furs and blankets, stone walls to keep the past and the future at bay.

For tonight, it would be entirely enough.

* * *

_Jowan:_

It was probably a sign of encroaching madness that two visitors in as many weeks felt like the whole world was tromping though their living room. Of course, considering where they were, two visitors were more than they had ever expected to receive the whole time they were here.

He pressed his face to the small sliver of space that the open door revealed. A pair of eyes surrounded by a map of deep lines looked back. "Well?" the woman on the other side of the door said. She rapped on the door with what sounded like a stick. "Are you going to let me in, young man?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "_Who_ are you?"

"Name's Ilse. Midwife Ilse, to be exact. From Little Oakford. It has been a _very_ long walk and I would like a cup of tea and to put my feet up."

"Er." There were any number of things wrong with this, starting with- "Little _Oakford_? But that's miles and miles away."

"Like I said. Long walk." Fiann had joined him at the door, and he glanced down as she snuffled at it and started wagging her stubby tail, dancing a little on her gawky legs.

_Ah, sod it._ He trusted the noses of the Mabari more than he trusted just about anything else in the world, and _especially_ more than he trusted his own judgment about people. He pulled the door open. The woman on the other side was dressed in well-mended clothing, a colorful shawl peeking out from beneath a dark cloak, a stout wooden staff in her left hand. "My pardon, madam," he said. "We don't exactly get many visitors."

"I should say not." Ilse glanced around the entrance hall. "Fancy. But what has been leaving droppings on your stairs? It smells terrible."

"Dragonlings." There had evidently been another hatching recently. Dragon droppings were memorably fragrant. "Come in. You're a midwife, you said?"

She stepped past him, and he barred the door. Fiann was positively delighted, and bounced around, panting happily and bowing to the new human. "And aren't you a nice pup. I am, indeed. Had a little bird tell me you might be in need of one."

He sucked in a swift breath. "What little bird?"

She quirked a brow. "A cup of something hot and a bit of a sit-down, and I'll tell you all about it. Warden."

Rylock. It had to be Rylock. But why would she have sent a _midwife_? "Go get Kathil," he told Fiann. "Bring her to the kitchen."

The pup gave a short bark and galumphed away, leg and paws flying in all directions in a manner that didn't seem to be particularly suited for making any actual forward progress. The warhound made it work, however. Jowan, left alone with Ilse, led her through the entrance hall and the chamber with the tree in it, toward the kitchen.

"Saw _that_ from miles away," the midwife said, nodding towards the great trunk and tangled roots. "Hard to miss when the only other green things are the pines. Old magic in this place." She stopped and looked contemplatively up into the branches. "Saw my sister on the way through the forest. She's been dead for almost thirty years."

"The forest is...haunted, is probably the best word for it. We've all seen the faces of our dead."

Ilse grinned. "I didn't mind. My sister always said that if she died, she was coming back to haunt me. Good to see that she finally managed it. Ah, now this looks like a kitchen indeed."

Jowan had almost finished making tea when Fiann reappeared, the rest of the two-legged denizens of the temple in tow. "Light hair, far too thin, scar on her face, and just pregnant enough to be showing," Ilse said. She was sitting in one chair and had her feet up in another. Her cloak hung by the hearth, steaming. "That would be the Grey Warden Kathil Amell, all right. I'm Ilse, a midwife. From Little Oakford."

Kathil looked at Ilse, and then at Jowan, with a rather too familiar look somewhere between irritation and puzzlement. "Fascinating, but what precisely are you doing here?" she asked Ilse, crossing her arms.

"Rylock said that there was a Grey Warden in need of a midwife in the back of nowhere. I believe she looked at the 'brae boyos' you have with you and marked that none of them have probably even seen a child born, much less helped. So she asked me to come out and check on you."

The color fled from Kathil's face. "Rylock?" Her voice was unsteady. "_Ser_ Rylock? The Templar?"

"One and the same." Jowan handed Ilse a cup of steeping tea. "Thank you, young man. Rylock-Gwen Rylock, actually, but when she went into the Templars she decided that calling herself Ser Gwen just wasn't going to work-grew up in Little Oakford. Sweet girl, for all she had a temper, but her father was mean as a bull with a beehive under its tail. She spent a lot of days at my house, growing up, and when her father died she more or less moved in with us. Wasn't interested in midwifery, for all we tried to encourage her. Pity, too, she's smart and strong and has a voice on her to boot. Anyhow, about eight days ago she shows up at my house and tells me that there's someone who's going to need my services out here. She brought me through the forest. She's waiting for me at the top of the stairs."

"She _did_ mention that I'm a mage, right?" Kathil was staring at the midwife as if she had two heads. "The Chantry doesn't exactly approve of mages having children."

"Ah, and there's an interesting story." Ilse smiled, the lines around her mouth deepening. She blew contemplatively on her tea. "About five years ago, Gwen was among a group of Templars who caught an apostate a few miles away from town-she might have been trying to find the Dalish. The apostate was nothing more than a slip of a girl, and she was quite pregnant. She went into labor that night, under Templar guard. Gwen could tell something was amiss and wanted to go get help, but her commander forbade it. Both the girl and her babe died after two days of labor, the girl in terrible pain the whole time."

"That is _horrible_," Cullen said. He was leaning on the doorframe, looking a bit ill. "We're supposed to be _merciful_."

"Ah, the ginger former Templar. You must be Cullen. Yes, well, what Templars are supposed to do and what they actually do are two very different things, at times. Since then, Gwen has done what she can to make sure that pregnant mages don't end up in the hands of the Chantry. We've sheltered one or two in Little Oakford, even. From what she said, she was initially thinking that you were being held prisoner here, Warden. Evidently she decided otherwise, and then decided to come get me."

Kathil took a deep breath. Some of what color she had in her face was returning. "Do you trust Rylock-Gwen, I mean?" she asked, dark eyes intent on Ilse. "Is she a woman of her word?"

"I do." Ilse sipped from the cup in her hands. "She went into the Templars because she wanted to do some good in the world, and her talents run more to swordplay than to anything else. She almost got recruited into the local bann's guard, but she decided at the last minute that she didn't trust his motivations."

"Hm," was Kathil's noncommittal response. "Well. Cullen, you'd better go invite Ser Rylock downstairs. This crop of dragonlings is still causing trouble." Cullen shrugged and left. Kathil came over to the table, and Zevran followed. The assassin looked unconvinced of Ilse's motivations. "So what, precisely, are you going to check?"

"Mostly that things are proceeding well, and figuring out when I'm going to need to come back." Ilse watched Kathil sit down, sharp eyes evaluating every movement. "So who's the father? The pretty mage over there who let me in?"

Kathil choked, looking about as horrified as Jowan felt at that prospect. "Sweet _Maker_, no. The truth is that there are a few candidates, Jowan _not_ among them, and I've decided not to worry about it. Why?"

"Oh, just being nosy," the midwife said cheerfully. "I think my apprentice might take a shine to him if she met him."

Kathil bit her lip, stifling laughter, and glanced at Jowan. "I'm afraid Grey Wardens don't really make for good husbands."

"Who said anything about marriage? Margarey is good, much better than my last three apprentices, but she needs to loosen up. Live a little. The nice thing about Wardens is that they hardly ever stick around. Always off after the next darkspawn. Margarey is taking care of things while I'm away. Maybe you can stop by in the spring." She glanced up as Rylock and Cullen entered the room. The heavily armored Templar at least had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Ah, Gwen, come have some tea."

Rylock gritted her teeth. "I didn't _intend_ to come inside, Ilse. Are you almost done? We need to be out of the forest before dark if we can manage it."

"Ah, dear heart, you are so serious. I suppose I ought to do what I came here for." She shoved her chair back, and stood. "Is there a private space where I can examine you, Kathil?"

"Back here." Kathil got up and led Ilse towards the door that led into the maze of small rooms that made up what once had been something akin to a cloister. That left him, Zevran, Cullen, and two Mabari alone in the kitchen with Rylock.

A decidedly awkward silence descended. Zevran put his back to the wall; his fingers twitched every once in a while as he looked at the Templar without speaking. Cullen looked everywhere but his fellow knight; Jowan could just imagine what sort of conversation had led to him managing to escort Rylock down here.

Jowan tried a number of conversational openers in his head. _So, how often do you find pregnant mages?_ _So, how do you square this up with the teachings of the Chantry? So, killed any mages lately?_

Rylock shifted, uncomfortable under their scrutiny. "I saw the demon when we passed through the forest," she said. "Haven't taken care of it yet?"

He gave her a flat gaze. "Saw a pregnant mage wander off into the back just now. Haven't told the local Knight Commander about her yet?"

"Point taken." She took a long breath. "I suppose Ilse ran her mouth, the old gossip."

"She did." Jowan took a step forward. Neither Cullen nor Zevran seemed inclined to speak. "Look, Rylock. I want to believe you mean well. But I'm afraid all of us have had some experience with good intentions going awry."

Rylock turned to face him, her jaw tightening. "Especially you, I imagine. Nobody makes as much of a mess as you did without a combination of good intentions and complete idiocy." She cleared her throat. "Or so I hear."

He couldn't help wincing. Redcliffe was going to follow him for the rest of his life. _Deservedly._"Quite true. We're eventually going to come into conflict with the Chantry. We're hoping to put that day off as long as possible. If Ilse or you say a word about us being back here..."

"Have you ever thought that maybe you should _invite_ that conflict?" Rylock said. Her voice was harsh. "The Chantry can't touch Wardens."

"Because this is a _child_ we're talking about." He lowered his voice. "The Chantry might not be able to touch a Warden, but it _can_ lay claim to the child of a mage-no matter who its mother is. And it would try to confine Kathil until she gave birth. And, well." He coughed. "You've _met_ Kathil, right? Can you imagine what she might do if the Chantry tried to lock her up again?"

"Not to mention the rest of us," Zevran added. "I must admit that it is unusual, to encounter a Templar who has such opinions about the Chantry. I was under the impression that they discourage independent thought in their knights."

"That's one way to put it." She gave the elf a sour look. "I don't agree with everything the Chantry does, but I support its mission. It's recorded that even Holy Andraste herself had differences of opinion with those within her ranks. I've listened to the Chant of Light so many times, and I've never heard anything that makes me think Andraste would have approved of forcing women to give birth without any help, and taking their children away from them by force. Even mages."

"One would think that a church run by women would be more sensible about these things, no? Ah, but I have seen too many things to expect that any religion will ever make sense." Zevran shook his head in mock sadness.

Cullen stirred. "And you still think hunting down and killing apostates is the right thing to do?"

"I think that sometimes what is right and what is necessary are two different things," said Rylock. She glanced at Jowan. "There are too many examples in our history of mages doing terrible things to defenseless people, whether on purpose or by accident."

"One might say the same thing about Templars," Jowan said, trying to keep his fraying temper intact.

Rylock was calm, at least outwardly. "One might. And yet which one of us did Andraste speak against? Mages are dangerous men and women."

"Oh, I see." Jowan let his disgust leak into his tone. "So you think it's terrible, how mages have their children taken away, but that's the _only_ scrap of dignity you'd allow us-"

"Jowan, _enough._" That was Kathil from the doorway of the kitchen. There was a deep line between her brows. Ilse peered over her shoulder, the dim light darkening her steel-threaded hair to black. "This is an argument that nobody wins. Ser Rylock, my thanks for bringing Ilse to us." She stepped out into the kitchen, heading towards the hearth and the pot of water that sat there. "I'm sure you want to be well away before dark comes."

"I do at that," the Templar said. She drew herself to her full height, and Jowan was abruptly aware of just how much _space_ Rylock took up. She was absolutely, unapologetically _present_. "Let's go, Ilse."

"Remember what I told you!" Ilse told Kathil, almost scolding. "Don't wait too long. All right, Gwen, I'm coming." She picked her stick up from where it leaned against the wall, and bent to pet Fiann. "I'll see you again, pup." Fiann wiggled in appreciation of the praise, her liquid eyes full of adoration.

Jowan blurted, "Take the mule!" Every face in the room turned to him. "Er. The mule. She's not doing any of us any good, and you should have some payment for coming all the way out here."

"That lop-eared thing? A little on the skinny side, but she looked sound enough." Ilse sounded thoughtful. "Does she ride?"

"None of us dared try," Kathil said. "She's not fond of mages."

"She can be sweet," Cullen added. "Even if you don't want her, give her to someone who does. It's the Maker's own providence that she hasn't been eaten by wolves yet."

Ilse looked at them, from one to another. "With an offer like that, how can I refuse?" she asked, and flashed them a bright smile. "Let's go, Gwen. We can collect the mule-does she have a name?-on the way."

"I'll come with you," Cullen said. "I can move the brush we're using as a corral, and tell you a bit about her. No, she doesn't have a name, not officially. I call her, er, Honeychild," he said, a little shamefaced. He glanced at Kathil. "Well, I had to call her _something_."

Kathil rolled her eyes and waved him off. She came to the table with a steaming cup as Ilse and Rylock collected their cloaks and left, Cullen leading the way and Fiann gangling along behind. Kathil sank down onto one of the splintery chairs and put her elbows on the table. "Sometimes, I think there really is someone watching out for us," she said quietly. "Of course, I also suspect that whoever it is has a savage sense of humor."

"I have seen larger coincidences," Zevran said. He came over to her and perched on the table next to her, reaching to take her hand. The mage curled her fingers in his. Jowan stood where he was, temporarily forgotten. "Not recently, mind."

She chuckled weakly and leaned her head against his waist. Lorn padded over, toes ticking, and put his head on her lap. "I've been given a list of things to expect and signs to watch for. We'll have her and Rylock as guests for a bit, with any luck. And Jowan, you're going to have to learn how to get along with Rylock, or by Andraste's frilly smallclothes I _will_ murder you _both_."

Jowan swallowed down the burning sensation in his chest. _She started it_ was not going to fly, he could tell. "Tall order, considering that she seems to know who I am. And what."

She didn't look at him, and after a moment he came to sit down across from her. "What you_are_ is a Warden, Jowan. I expect you to sodding well _act_ like one. Rylock-Gwen-means well. Just because she scares the braes off of you doesn't mean you get to act like an apprentice still wet behind the ears."

"She doesn't scare me," he protested.

Kathil opened her eyes. "Doesn't she?" The corner of her mouth twisted. "Ah, I wish Leliana were here. She'd put you to rights."

He remembered the hard look in the bard's blue eyes. _Do any more damage than has already been done, and there is nowhere you can hide from me._ "I'm sure she would," he said. "I have some work to do."

She nodded and Jowan got up and left the kitchen, passing into the maze of tiny rooms beyond. His shoulders ached. There were months left to go in winter, and every time he thought he and his oldest friend had made some progress, something like this happened.

He was tired, and tired of it. But they would all have to wear through the winter together.

Somehow.

* * *

_Cullen:_

He rapped on the doorframe of the room they were using as a makeshift library. "I brought you something to eat," he called.

He heard a shuffling sound, and a groan, then Kathil's head popped into view from behind a shelf, followed by the rest of her. "Andraste's little apples, it is getting harder every day to get up," she said. "I would have come and eaten with you if someone had told me it was time to eat."

"We didn't want to disturb you." In truth, it had been a difficult morning; two months after the midwife's visit, Kathil's moods were difficult to predict, and this morning she had been uncomfortable and snappish. By silent consensus, he and Zevran and Jowan had decided to let her work through the noon meal if she wanted to.

They'd drawn straws to take her meal to her. He'd lost.

Fortunately, Kathil had sweetened since the morning, and her already prodigious appetite had only been sharpened by pregnancy. She might have been happy to see a darkspawn emissary if it had come bearing soup and bread.

He handed her the bowl he carried, and she took it to sit down at the low table that was her workbench, She cleared a space of parchment and vellum and set it down, then took the spoon and bread from Cullen. "I'm going to have to give up and bring a normal table in here soon," she said. "This is starting to make my back hurt."

Cullen glanced over the papers on the table. Instead of the long scrawled lines of her notes, the writing in her cramped hand was narrow and dense, separated into verses. "What are you working on?"

She _mmm_ed and swallowed a mouthful of broth-soaked bread. "You're going to think I'm crazy."

"And this is different from usual how?" Cullen cocked an eyebrow at her.

Kathil patted the pile of furs next to her. He sat down, and she handed him a page from the top of one of the piles. At the top was written, _The Canticle of Demons_.

She ate and he read.

_In the Golden City Undying we were_   
_beautiful and triumphant, the First Children_   
_of a kind Maker. We, the ever-living!_   
_Then the mortals came, and brought_   
_with them death and sorrow beyond care's lonely count;_   
_a thief in the very heart of the Fade._

_In that moment we knew the sting_   
_of endings unkind and unwanted-_   
_we who were beautiful were changéd,_   
_cursed to yearn and hunger for_   
_bread that brings no satisfaction,_   
_love that burns false within us,_   
_life but a shambling shadow of what came before._

_For one of our number had been stolen_   
_and whipped with thornéd branches we were driven to seek,_   
_to find..._

It went on much in that vein for many pages.

"You do know that this is heresy," he said, putting the paper down.

She was mopping the last of her soup up with the crust of her bread. "I know. It just...wanted to be written, I suppose. I doubt I'll ever show it to anyone. I'll probably leave it here when we go in the spring."

"It's too bad." He glanced down at the nearly stacked pages on the table. "It almost seems like it's the sort of thing that ought to be out there. The other side of the story. Might make things easier, to know a little of the motivations of the enemy."

Kathil shook her head, and picked up her pen. She was using the pen and nibs he'd gotten for her in Denerim, he noted with a jolt of recognition. "People like simple truths," she said. "They like to know who's good and who's bad. Demons are evil, mages are dangerous, darkspawn are a mindless plague. Andraste's a young woman, forever."

"Don't you think that's how she'd prefer to be remembered?" he asked, a little stung despite himself. He _liked_ the beautiful statues, especially the ones in the dining hall of the Tower. "Young and beautiful and strong forever?"

She rolled the pen between her fingers contemplatively. "She'd had children," she said. "She'd loved, and lost, and I think she knew that she was going to her death when she followed Maferath that night. I don't think she would have given that up for anything. I know I wouldn't."

And they were no longer talking about Andraste. "Any regrets?" He glanced at her face, wondering what her answer would be.

"Thousands. But I'd still make the same decisions, knowing what I do today." She put the pen down and rubbed one eye with the back of her hand. "Well, maybe bar one or two. Maker's Breath, I'm tired. Restless night."

He stifled a small pang of guilt. Zevran had spent the night with him last night; Kathil slept poorly without the assassin in bed with her. "Have a nap," he suggested. "I can copy some of these verses. The first few pages look like they're mostly done."

"It _would _be nice to have a clean copy of the first part. Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Sister Gisela would be pleased that I'm keeping up the trade she tried to teach me." He smiled. "Lie down. I'll copy, and keep watch."

Kathil gave in, and a few moments later she was curled up in the furs next to him, the top of her head nearly touching his leg. Her breath gentled and then deepened; she was sound asleep before he'd even managed to find a clean sheet of paper. He uncapped the inkwell and got to work.

The first few pages were a mess of crossed-out lines and cranky notes in the margins, but he made do. The metal nib scratched against the paper, and the scent of the ink brought a certain peace to him, the ghost of a simpler time coiled in the pen that he held. Dip the inkwell, puzzle out another line, write, sprinkle sand; the rhythm of it soothed him.

Beside him, the mage stirred, making a soft sound. Without thinking, he reached over and stroked her pale hair. She quieted under his hand, and he glanced at her.

There were irregular patches of darkened skin on her cheeks and forehead, dark circles under her eyes. Cullen could barely remember what she'd looked like as an apprentice, before she'd been made a Grey Warden and then come back to the Tower with that deep scar on her face. She'd been pretty in an unfinished sort of way, he thought. She hadn't quite yet grown into her nose back then.

In sleep, the scar down the side of her face was a little shallower than usual. The light was dim enough to make her pale eyelashes nearly vanish, giving her closed eyes a strange look a little akin to a just-born kitten's. Her slightly open mouth revealed that one crooked front tooth that was hard to see unless she was smiling widely, which happened rarely enough.

_We are going to hurt each other over and over again, Kathil. Because that's life, and that's who we _are.

He still had the scars on his forearm where she'd burned him, a perfect impression of her fingers. To be fair, it was probably the least of the scars they'd left on each other. The worst ones were invisible.

_Any regrets?_

_Thousands._

And yet.

He abandoned pretense and prudence, and lay down curled around Kathil. After a little while, she shifted, and he put his arms around her. It was at once familiar and strange, like coming home and like walking into an entirely new territory.

_You do know that this is heresy._

_I don't think she would have given that up for anything. I know I wouldn't._

"Not for anything," he murmured, and in the lamplight he slipped down into sleep, Kathil in his arms.

* * *

_Lorn:_

It is the season of snow, and of silence, and of waiting.

His human grows ever rounder with her pup. Sometimes she is happy, and sometimes she snarls like she has burrs between her paw-pads, but she mostly smells of lightning and pup-growing, and it is good. Her elf is kind to her, and his voice soft; this too Lorn approves of, for right now his human needs that kindness and softness. Growing pups is hard work.

Her knight is kind as well, though in a different way. Lorn is having difficulty at times figuring out whether his human is mated with her knight once more. Fiann is growing large; no more does she need to be left behind when he and the mouse-mage go to hunt.

There is venison, and there is rabbit. There are roots dug out from under the snow, and there are bones for him and Fiann to carry about and then settled down companionably before the fire with. He is teaching her about winter, and about what it is to wait with one's human. One of the dragons who shares this stone territory with them grows too habituated to their presence and lingers too close. When they bring it down, Lorn rediscovers that dragons mostly don't taste very good. But the liver-

Dragon liver is _delicious_.

So are some other dragon innard bits. His human uses them to make biscuits for him and Fiann. The others complain, but Lorn doesn't have any idea what they're talking about. His human makes the most _wonderful_ biscuits.

He lies on his back at his human's side, thinking about biscuits. She reaches down to scratch his belly, and he sighs in appreciation. "Good pup," she says. "You don't worry about silly things like demons."

Lorn considers this. Demons are for biting, mostly, for rending and tearing into bits. The demon who resides outside is not for biting. It is for avoiding when possible, like the dragons deep in this territory. Like treading the ground of an established pack, sometimes it is best to simply never be seen.

But the demon watches them. It can't come inside; something to do with the tree in the big room open to the sky. And of late, the scent it leaves behind is a little less _demon_ and a little more _healer-mage_. It is a complicated change. One that he can explain to Fiann and no one else, not even his human.

Humans have small noses that don't smell much. That is, after all, why they have _him_.

His human catches that last, and smiles. "It is. You and Fiann keep us safe."

He wiggles like a pup and sneaks his tongue out, swiping her across the wrist. Of course we do. We are _good_ dogs.

"You are, at that." She scratches him again, then straightens. "I wonder where Jowan is. He was supposed to be back a while ago."

Lorn, still on his back, cocks an ear. He knows that his human and the mouse-mage get along only intermittently. For each day that they smile at each other there is a day that they growl. Today was one of the smiling days-at least it had started out that way. Whether it would continue that way, he did not know.

But! He hears the familiar sound of the mouse-mage's footsteps coming near, followed soon by the mage himself. He smells of blood and of exhaustion. He slumps into a chair. "It's no good. The thinning of the Veil here is too old and too well-established. It enforces its own borders, and the demon isn't helping."

"Oh, _sod_ it. I'm out of ideas, Jowan."

"We were grasping at straws anyway." The mouse-mage rubs his forehead. "At least the thinning isn't getting worse. We're going to have to leave it, I think."

"And the demon." His human reaches down to pet Lorn's chest again. Her touch is tentative, comfort-seeking. "I hate to think of leaving this mess for someone else to clean up, but I suppose that this isn't actually our mess. This place has been haunted for a very long time."

The mouse-mage looks at Lorn's human, and Lorn can smell all of the words in him that he doesn't say. Humans are silly sometimes, Lorn thinks. Best to get all of the growling out and go back to being friends. The pack suffers when one of its members is constantly challenging the leader.

But human packs work a bit differently, and his human picks up her pen again. _Scratch, scratch, scratch,_ goes the paper. The mouse-mage's heartbeat slows. The quiet is alive.

It is all right, Lorn decides. Their little pack, their den in the earth. Some day, his human will have her pup, and there will be things to teach it. They will go back out into the world, his human has told him. After.

_After_ is later. _Now_ there is this quiet and this waiting. He looks up at his human, and lifts his head so he can waggle one ear at her. She chuckles, and hands him a biscuit. He rolls over to crunch it properly.

And after the biscuit is done and the mouse-mage has departed, Lorn puts his head on his human's foot and dozes. He can smell just a tinge of sharpness in the air; the snow is falling outside, he thinks.

"Good dog," his human mutters.

And he _is_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this is part four the Old Roads series. I deserve an infodump or two. :) This chapter is where a lot of the bones of this story are a bit exposed. A lot of what I wanted to accomplish when I realized that I was writing an epic was to show some different perspectives on Thedas. After all, we're told what the demons want, but never really why.
> 
> We don't have all of the pieces yet, but we're getting there.
> 
> So here's the scoop on what's up: my non-writing life has taken a turn for the busy, and will continue to do so until mid-July. My writing life has gotten similarly busy, as I have a couple of deadlines sneaking up on me and I'm doing a charity writeathon starting in late June for six weeks. (And if you feel like helping support one of the best SF/fantasy writing workshops out there, let me know and I'll direct you to information about the writeathon.) I am not abandoning this story, but updates will continue to be sporadic for a while.
> 
> And to everyone who's commented, favorited, alerted, etc: Thank you so much! You guys keep me going, even on days when I can only sneak in a sentence or three. :)


	15. Daughter of Silence, Daughter of Bones

_Leliana:_

Leliana sat under the shade of a tilia tree, watching the bustle of the crowded road go by.  Women were voluminous dresses, some in Antivan-style veils; the current fashion was for elaborate hairstyles to be covered with gauzy cloth, partially obscuring what was beneath.  Two elven slaves hauled a cart, another pushing behind; donkeys, mules, and oxen were prohibited from the streets of Minrathous, and only the very rich could afford horses.  

The sun was warm, burning through the light winter haze.  This was _so_ much more pleasant than Ferelden this time of year; it had snowed all of once, a month after midwinter, and that had been a cause for the whole city to take a day off in celebration.  The next day, the snow had vanished.  Winters in Tevinter were mild, even more so than in Orlais or even Antiva, where winter was the rainy season, dreary days and flash floods in the desert.

Of course, the summers were terrible.  But Leliana would be gone long before the days lengthened, if she were lucky.

A small figure darted through the crowd and dropped to a crouch by Leliana’s knee.  The child was dark-eyed, his or her mousy hair cut raggedly off at ear level.  It sniffled and scrubbed at its nose with the back of one grubby hand.  “Herself says delivery’s come in,” the child said in oddly accented Tevinter.  The gangs of street children spoke a language among themselves that was unlike anything Leliana had ever heard before, equal parts Tevinter, Antivan, Nevarran, and words they seemed to have made up out of whole cloth.  “Says y’best stir y’self.”  It looked at her, an expectant look in its eyes.  She dug two small coins out of a pocket of her robes, and flipped one to the child.

The coin vanished so quickly that Leliana would have suspected the child of having some magical talent—if not being talented were not the likely reason it had been thrown onto the streets to fend for  itself, that was.  She held up the other coin, thumb rubbing along one clipped edge.  “Do you know where I’m lodging?”  The child nodded.  “Open your ears for me and listen  in the Square of Andraste, and you’ll get this now and more later.”

“Lissen f’what, _massime_?”

“A name.  Rulla, Aulus Nautius.”  In another land, it would have been _Aulus the Boor, of the Nautius_.  She occasionally wished that other parts of the country would adopt the naming principles of the Tevinters.  The descriptive _cognomen _might have saved some time if, say, Rendon Howe had instead been Rendon the Serpent, of the Howes.  “A spice merchant.  His name has been heard in some unexpected quarters lately.  It would help to know how far the news has traveled.”

“Can do that, _massime_.”  Evidently, having a coin or two in her hand made Leliana worthy of at least politeness, if not respect.  “Lissen, speak, keep silence.”  The child’s eyes did not leave the coin.  “Murena promises.”

“Murena.  Your name?”

“Only one I got.”  The child grinned.  Leliana was still not sure whether it was male or female.  Its teeth were crooked and stained, one of the front ones badly chipped.  “Coin?”

“Coin.”  She flipped the coin at Murena, who snatched it from midair.  If the child survived until puberty, it would make a fine thief.  The life expectancy of the children in the gangs was low, but those who survived were the toughest, the quickest, and above all the most charismatic.  Vitula, Leliana’s contact here and the titular _Herself_, had once been one of these children, exposed on a hill out of town because she was from a bloodline that carried magic and had been tested to have none.

Leliana suspected that the test had been wrong.  Vitula had abilities beyond those of even an Orlesian-trained bard, and surely abilities that should not be possessed by a woman who, before Leliana, had barely met anyone at all from Orlais.  

No matter.  She got to her feet, and the child darted away.  Vitula held the Low Court, a loose collection of ruffians, thieves, and confidence tricksters, in the neighborhood called the Half-Deep.  Leliana had best get there, and quickly.  Her ‘delivery’ could mean only one thing—the _jeu_ was afoot once more, and she at last had a chance to corner her prey.

Half-Deep, at first glance, was not a bad neighborhood.  If anything, it was a little _too_ clean.  Vitula employed the street children to pick up the garbage and sweep the streets—and to watch and warn her about strangers coming too close.  Leliana passed a number of shops, all of them selling legitimate things—pots, vegetables, cloth.  From the outside, one would not guess that if one passed into any given shop and spoke a certain phrase to the seller, there were all _kinds_ of goods to be bought and sold in cellars dug beneath the shops.

It was a dangerous neighborhood for the unaware.  Leliana was aware, and as she walked along the streets of Half-Deep, she gathered only a few glances, most of those for her uncovered head.  _Cheveux roux_ were rare enough here to garner a second look, just as it was in Orlais.  Only in Ferelden was red hair largely unremarkable.  

She approached the arched entryway of what might have been a once-fine house, confident that her approach had been noted, and that she was welcome.  This was the entrance to the Low Court; were she not welcome, a pair of large humans would have appeared when she was half of a block away, lounging in the doorway.  Their dark glances were more than enough to warn away most of those who were innocently lost, and their weapons and battle-scarred hands were enough to keep away the thrill-seekers—at least those who weren’t suicidal.  

The guards might not be much of a match for an Antivan Crow, or for her own skills should she have some leisure to plan, but Vitula had a reputation, and most left her strictly alone.  Leliana passed through the arch into a mostly-bare courtyard beyond.  There were a few statues arrayed along one wall, but other than that the stone-tiled courtyard was echoingly empty.

A veiled woman appeared in the doorway that led into the house proper.  She beckoned, and Leliana followed her into the cool dim of the interior.  The woman Leliana followed paused before a blank wall.  She gestured, and part of the wall slid aside.  “The Bone Queen waits in the grand hall,” she whispered, and withdrew.

Leliana passed through the narrow doorway and paused on the other side to let her eyes adjust to the darkness as the wall slid shut behind her.  Magelights glowed in sconces every few yards, but the shadows were still plentiful and deep, and the stairs irregular.  The Low Court was not a place where one would wish to move imprudently, especially considering what the place was.

She descended the stairs and into the Low Court—also known as the catacombs of Minrathous.

The staircase emptied out into a low-ceilinged corridor that was lined with bones.  Skulls and rib bones made abstract and macabre designs on both sides of the hall.  Thousands of years of Tevinter citizens had been buried in the catacombs, before the Empire had converted to the worship of the Maker.  Eventually, those in charge of the tombs had run out of room.

They had gotten...inventive.

There was a strange beauty to the place; those who had built the ossuary had been mad but brilliant.  There were rumors that the builders or their descendents were still at work down here, in the levels of the old mines that had not yet been fully mapped.  Leliana passed by an intricate display of finger bones, and stopped at an intersection.

The wall she faced had a mural of sorts on it, skulls small enough that they had likely once belonged to children nestled in pelvises, between them arm and wrist bones spelling out, _MEMENTO MORI_.  _Remember that you will die._

Leliana shuddered, and turned left down the more brightly lit corridor.

More bones; there were so many.  She never came down here without wondering at the sheer quantity of people interred down here, made into art.  She saw the delicate arch of an empty elven eye socket, there a heavy dwarven brow; all races were buried down here, all classes from the richest to poorest.  In pagan Minrathous, death had been the only equalizer.  No matter who you had been, your bones were brought to the catacombs.  

Now, of course, the dead were burned like Andraste.  But centuries of old bones lined the walls of the catacombs, forgotten by all but the Low Court.

The corridor opened out into a wider space that was known only as “the hall”.  The ceiling was still low, the walls still lined with bones.  At one end of the hall was a chair made of bones.  Not a throne, as such; the word _throne _implied a certain amount of grandeur.  This was merely a chair, and the woman sitting on it had her chin propped on her fist, watching Leliana’s approach.

She was unveiled, her hair gathering shadows.  There were watchers, Leliana knew, but Vitula was nominally alone.  The Bone Queen was a tall woman, her face carved into hard lines.  She did not stir at Leliana’s approach.

The bard seated herself on a cushion at Vitula’s feet.  She did not speak.  

“I see Murena reached you,” Vitula said.  She spoke Tevinter with a perfect upper-class accent.  “Pivoine, my pet.  Are you truly set on this?”

Leliana did not flinch, though _my pet_ reminded her overmuch of Marjolaine.  “The _jeu_ must be played through, to one end or another.”

“I wonder.”  Vitula hummed briefly, as if considering something.  “You will fail, you know.  Your prey is a man of many resources, and he knows you are coming.”

“That is the beauty of the _jeu_,” Leliana said, and smiled.  “The best ones can be played even if the game is known.”

The other woman’s mouth curved.  “I _could_ help you even the ground, my sweet.  Camillus Numicius has been a thorn in my side for a number of years.  But even the Bone Queen must consider carefully when the quarry is a magister.  Should you do me a very small favor...”

Leliana raised an eyebrow.  “Which would be?”  It was at best foolish to bargain for future promises with those like Vitula; they tended to call in those favors at inopportune moments.  But if the Bone Queen wanted something badly enough that she would throw in with Leliana, it might be worth it.

“Murena.”  Vitula shifted in her chair of bones, draped her hand over the knob of a thighbone.  “You bards take apprentices, this I have heard.  Take Murena when you go, and teach her your trade.  You’ll find her an intelligent enough thing, if not precisely biddable.”

She stared at the Bone Queen, trying to make sense of the request.  If Vitula cared enough about one grubby urchin enough to make this request, then.. “She’s—”

Vitula raised one hand, and snapped her fingers.  There was just the breath of movement from within the carved bone walls..  Leliana thought that perhaps, for the first time, she was alone with Vitula.  “She is my daughter, though she doesn’t know.  Once she does, she’ll be after my throne.  She takes after me.  You will find her to be ambitious.”  She smiled thinly.  “She was a miscalculation.  I was very young.  All I ask is that you keep her away from Tevinter for a few decades, and ignorant of what she is.  In return, I will place some of my people at your disposal.”

“Who?”

“Two mages.  One skilled in scrambling the senses and defeating wards, and the other in the arts that are not spoken of.”  _Blood magic,_ she meant.  “One clocksmith who can pass as noble if no one looks too closely.  And a woman who works for the Numicius household, and bears a grudge.”

_Clocksmith_ was a Tevinter word for something that Leliana had once hoped was merely a rumor.  Here, the Rite of Tranquility was used to far different purpose than it was in much of the rest of Thedas.  Mages who ran afoul of politics or were found guilty of crimes were taken and subjected to the Rite, then trained to kill without remorse.   Unlike the Antivan Crows, who despite what they liked to claim _did_ tend to fear death, clocksmiths feared nothing, felt nothing.  They could be given the semblance of feeling for a time, if it got them closer to their targets.

It was by the Maker’s mercy that clocksmiths were vanishingly rare, and never left Tevinter.  

Troubled, Leliana added Vitula’s offering into her plans for the _jeu_.  By her estimation, with these new resources they could play a more direct game with far better odds of success.  And it would only cost her taking charge of one completely unschooled girl and somehow turning her into a bard—and keeping her away from her mother’s throne.

_Only._

Vitula’s hands tensed slightly, the fingers of one hand curling around the bone it lay over.  “I know who you are in the service of, my pet.  I believe you will find Murena an asset, once properly trained.  I am far too young to have to defend my power against my own offspring.  The trade benefits us both.”

There was a bit of the scent of truth about that statement.  But more than that, there was everything that Vitula was not saying—that within Tevinter, there was little chance for a street child to gain an education in anything but crime.  That for Vitula to acknowledge that she had a child would mean that Murena would be dead within the month.

That sometimes loving a child meant sending her out of harm’s way.

“How do you know you can trust me?” she asked, suspicious.  “I am a stranger here, not a member of your court.  I spend most of my time in Orlais.”

“And Ferelden.”  Vitula was still in her bone chair.  “I know much about you, Pivoine.  I know from whom you stole your name, and why.  I know of your service to the Warden Amell.  You are loyal until betrayed, and your kills are often so very precise.”  Her eyes narrowed slightly.  “I trust no one, but I have faith that you will act in your own best interest, and that you will not harm a child.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“A Queen must have a few secrets, pet.”  Vitula smiled.  “Pivoine.  Peony.  A complicated and exotic blossom, a flower of concealed wealth and secret abundance.  Apt, I think.”

Leliana breathed the musty air of the ossuary, and considered the woman who sat on the bone chair.  Better an ally than an enemy, and it was past time for Leliana to take an apprentice.  A bard occasionally worked until old age, but more often they died young.  “I agree,” she said, softly.

“It is done, then.”  Vitula reached beneath her chair and produced a small package, a bundle wrapped in drab cloth and tied with twine.  “Your delivery.  Send a message when you wish to collect the mages and the clocksmith, and I will arrange your contact within the Numicius household.  Return before you depart Minrathous, and I will give you Murena.”

She spoke of the child as if she were another package to be delivered, but Leliana thought she could see something on Vitula’s face that betrayed a deeper emotion.  She came forward to take the surprisingly heavy bundle from the Bone Queen.  “I will,” she said.  At a wave from Vitula, she knew she was dismissed, and retreated to the relative safety of the narrow bone-lined corridor.  

She saw no one as she climbed the stairs and exited the house into the winter sunshine of Minrathous.

*****

Ten days later, all was in readiness.  Aulus the Boor had been quietly removed—he had been speaking a little too loudly of the exotic substances that the Bone Queen had requested that he procure, bragging that he had dealt with the Qunari themselves to get those substances.  It was true enough—the powders that Leliana had carefully compounded were made from plants that only grew in Par Vollen—but Aulus’s big mouth had been a loose end that needed to be tied up.  Stopping Magister Camillus Numicius was only part of Leliana’s task.  She still needed to get out of Tevinter and back to Ferelden afterward.

The sun was touching the western horizon when Leliana set out from her lodgings.  She passed the Square of Andraste—supposedly the place where the Prophet had been burned—and its usual crowds of pilgrims and hawkers.  There was a shadow-show in that square almost every sundown, twice a day during festivals, that depicted Andraste’s walk to the pyre and the taking of her life.  Evidently the Black Divine himself approved of the shadow-shows, but Leliana was of the Orlesian Chantry, and found them crass.  

She was dressed in robes borrowed from one of her own contacts, the stiffly elaborate design of the Imperial Chantry sitting heavily on her shoulders.  That contact had been running a scheme of her own on the magister, and it had taken some convincing for Leliana to change her plans.  And it had taken cold coin—which Leliana was running a bit short on—to convince the priest to drop her plans to fleece the Numicius household for all it was worth.  The chantry where Sister Pellice was resident would still feast on the corpse of the household in the form of “anonymous donations”, but the take would be far smaller than originally planned.

Still, it had worked out.  Sister Pellice—a sundowner who had once been titled _Mandragore_ but had passed on the codename a number of years ago—had been cultivating the magister for years.  That work would bear fruit this night.

Her hair was veiled, her heart quiet.  Camillus Numicius was a mage, and there were at least ten other mages resident in his household, but that was only where the difficulty began.  He was also very friendly with the Tevinter Grey Wardens, who had risen in favor in the last few years with the revelation that the darkspawn were not permanently defeated after all.  

And possibly the most difficult problem of all was the fact that there was already an Orlesian bard present in the household.  Not a sundowner, to all of their good fortune, but one who reported directly to the Empress herself, and who would be missed if he disappeared.

There was little that Leliana would like less than to have her presence and actions here tonight scrutinized by Empress Celene of Orlais.  

The contents of the packet that the Bone Queen had given Leliana would take care of most of the household.  The mages and the clocksmith would take care of the magister.  Setting the scene, making evidence disappear once the deed was done, and neutralizing the bard...that was Leliana.

Drugs were such a very _imprecise_ weapon.  She hated relying on them.  But as she approached the front door of the household of the Numicius family, she saw that they had done their job.  _Very nice, my girl,_ Marjolaine’s voice whispered in her memory.  _Such a pretty weapon you are._

Leliana ignored the voice, the phantom Marjolaine who always stood at her shoulder when she was working.  She made sure to be quite shrill in her request for entry, telling the sleepy guards on the door that the magister had requested her presence.  They let her in without question, and on the other side of the gate she was joined by what looked to be a Tevinter noble and his two servants.

Only the blankness in the noble’s gaze revealed him as a clocksmith.  The mages posing as servants nodded to Leliana.  The drugs had been distributed with the evening meal by the snake in the bosom of the household; sleeping grains to the guards and servants, and a rather more specific mixture that caused hallucinations and nausea for the other residents.  They passed into the central courtyard of the great house, Leliana sweeping forward of the other three.  A young woman scampered ahead of them, sobbing, her hands lit with coruscating fire.

There was a muffled explosion from one side.  “Hurry,” she murmured, and the clocksmith and mages broke away from her.  One of the mages was muttering what sounded suspiciously like a prayer as he walked, and soft popping sounds accompanied his words.  Those were the wards being taken down, one after another.  

Leliana reached the other side of the courtyard, and paused.  Where—?

There.

“You’ve all gone _mad_!”  The speaker at the end of the corridor ducked a tongue of flame that darted out from one of the rooms at him.  He was a compact but well-built man, with an impressive nose and wearing the colors of the Numicius household.

And he was decidedly, unwelcomely familiar.

He ran down the hallway towards Leliana, feet quiet on the many colorful rugs that lined the hall, calling, “Sister, we need help!  Please—”  He came to a stop twenty feet away, staring at Leliana.  “Wait.  You look—you’re Pivoine’s little piece, aren’t you?  The one who was always hovering around her, looking jealous.”

In the back of Leliana’s mind, Marjolaine laughed.

Leliana discarded her original plan; faced with this man, there would be no framing the sundowner known as Mandragore for her actions tonight.  She smiled.  “Remy.  It is a pleasure.”  Remy was a bard, once a confidant of Marjolaine.  Not a sundowner; he was not that intelligent.  But he had skills in subterfuge, and he had one of the most precious gifts of a bard—an eidetic memory.  He could glance at a missive but once and reproduce it perfectly years later, if need be.

There was suspicion on Remy’s distinguished face.  “You’re the reason there’s been a sudden outbreak of insanity.”

“Possibly.”  Her smile had gone to venom, she knew.  Remy took a step back.  “Do not interfere.  This has nothing to do with you.”

“I have been charged with the safety of the magister’s family—”

Leliana dropped her voice low.  “The _family_ will be all right, barring little accidents, yes?  My errand does not involve them, or you.  Surely the good Empress does not mean to shield the magister from the consequences of _all_ of his actions.”

She could almost see Remy’s mind working. “This is to do with whatever Camillus has been up to with Ferelden.  I _told_ him.  Ferelden is poison right now, even without that mage figurehead of theirs.  Unfortunately, the Empress would be very angry with me if I allowed one of her own sundowners to kill my charge.”

Leliana dropped one hand to her hip.  “And who says I am hers?”  Without waiting for a reply, she palmed one of her little daggers from a fold in her robe and threw it, forcing Remy to dodge.  “Protecting Imperial magisters, now?  You’ve fallen hard and fast, _petit _Remy.”

“I could say the same about you.”  Then they were fighting, heartbeats passing.  Leliana had learned to fight in some of the most ridiculous fashions of Orlais, including shoes that added six inches to her height.  The Chantry robes were no problem.  What _was_ a problem was that she was going to very quickly run out of time, and there was a whey-faced woman stumbling into the corridor, staring at them as if they were perhaps dancing bears.  With little hats.

She chuckled, thinking of Remy with a little hat perched on his head.  The other bard’s footsteps slowed slightly, then he stooped, grabbed hold of the edge of the rug that Leliana stood on, and yanked.

She wasn’t ready for it, and stumbled.  In that moment the other bard was on her, knocking her to the ground, hands fastened around her neck.  She choked, and once again she heard Marjolaine’s laughter.  _Oh, my pretty.  Distracted, are we?_

_I am nothing like you, Marjolaine._

_Aren’t you?  We shall see._

She twisted, remembering all of the lessons she had been taught about how to escape a chokehold.  Remy had been taught the same lessons, but Leliana had spent a year traveling with an Antivan Crow.  She had picked up a trick or two.

Like the little packet that she palmed as she struggled, then shoved into her opponent’s face.  Remy was breathing in as the packet burst and white powder filled the air.  Leliana held her breath and got one knee between their bodies, levering him up and away.  He thudded to the rug next to her, limbs sprawled.

The drug was swift-acting but short-lived, overwhelming the mind for the space of a few heartbeats.  She was retrieving another packet as she sat up.  She’d been taught how to shrug off the effects of the drug, but the second one was one that as far as she knew it was not possible to prepare against.  Remy writhed, hands clenching, and in one swift motion she tore open the packet and clapped it against his mouth.

When Leliana let him go, he howled and scrabbled at the rug.  The pale woman who had come upon them fighting had vanished again, and Leliana was late.  If she were very lucky, the drug she’d given Remy would blot out his memory of the last few minutes.

And if she were not, she would have quite a bit of trouble on her hands when he came around.  She couldn’t risk killing him.  Though—she turned to look thoughtfully at Remy, who had quieted and was now staring at something she couldn’t see, moaning gently.  She stepped up to him and produced a small device from one of her pockets.  It was something she’d planned to leave with the magister’s corpse, but it seemed right to leave it here.

It was juvenile, but she found the idea of Remy waking with a Flower of Dumat in his pocket and no idea where it had come from amusing.  The Flowers were cunning devices, the province of some of the Daughters of Silence.  The Daughters (and Sons; some were male) were exclusive entertainers, residing somewhere in the uncertain zone between performers and prostitutes.  Many of them were artists of pain.

The Flower, so innocent-looking in its folded state, went into Remy’s pocket and Leliana was away.  Voices in the household were raised in terror and confusion, and smoke hung on the air.  She dodged a servant shouting for guards and hurried upstairs, towards the magister’s room.

“_There_ you are,” one of her mages hissed.  Sertorius, she thought his name was.  He was standing by the door, anxiously looking out.  “We have problems.”

“I can see that.”  The clocksmith stood motionless in the center of the room, his expressionless face splattered with blood.  At his feet lay two corpses—one was Camillus Numicius, and the other was the blood mage that she had been counting on to provide a solid cover for the death.

She didn’t bother asking what happened; time was passing, and they had perhaps a hundred heartbeats before the city guards would be rapping on the gate.  She crossed the room, avoiding the puddles of blood, and stooped to look at the face of her dead prey more closely.

He had been painfully handsome, before he died.  Young for a magister, to judge by his nearly unlined face, though his hair was white.  “Strip them and arrange them like lovers,” she told the clocksmith.  “Intertwined.”  She turned to Sertorius.  “Set up something that might be used to summon a demon, then burn it.  Burn everything in the room.  You’ve seen a desire demon before, yes?”

The mage had turned the color of fresh milk.  “Y-yes,” he stammered.  Behind Leliana, the clocksmith was busy pulling clothes off of corpses.  “Why?”

“We need images of them fleeing.  We need many people to see demons tonight.  By the time things are calmed down, we’ll be long gone.”  The mage reminded her a bit of Sketch; certainly the way he looked at her with more than a little horror in his eyes was reminiscent of her first few missions with the elven mage.  She wondered what had happened to him.  He’d vanished, after that last job with Marjolaine.

She did not blame him one bit.

“Now,” she said, prodding.  “We must fly, yes?”  The mage nodded and got to work.  Leliana stepped into the magister’s study, just off of the bedroom.  Her contact within the household had told her exactly where Camillus kept his private papers—in a locked compartment beneath a floor tile.  She levered the tile up and thanked the Maker for estranged wives.  Anger loosened tongues, and the woman’s rage had burned white-hot.  In return for the information that allowed this night’s work to be completed, the magister’s wife and her youngest son had been provided with conveyance to the edge of town and the name of a caravan-master who was leaving for Antiva.  All else was up to her.

Leliana swiftly picked the lock on the compartment and lifted the lid.  She was not disappointed by the contents—scrolls and folded letters with broken seals, vials of substances that were likely poisons, jewelry.  Leliana took it all, emptying the vault into a bag she carried with her, and locked it again as she began to smell smoke.  

She opened the robes and shrugged out of them, revealing an unremarkable Antivan-style tunic and leggings beneath.  She stepped into the bedroom, seeing hungry flame consuming wall hangings and the bed in the center of the room.  She tossed her robes into a crumpled pile next to the corpses; let the Imperial magisters chew on _that_.  “We must be off,” she said quietly.  “This way.”

Fire, like poison, was an imprecise weapon.  The combination of the two was going to kill more people than she liked, tonight.  _You grow rusty,_ Marjolaine’s voice said.  _Or is that desperate?_

She wished that voice would be _quiet_.

There was a back exit from the house that was used by the magister’s more discreet visitors, the visitors that had likely been part of the reason that his wife had sealed his fate by speaking to the Bone Queen about him.  It was not a precisely _dignified_ exit, since it required climbing down through a narrow passage between walls and then stooping through a low tunnel that led under the wall to a neighboring house, but it worked.  Sertorius led the way, taking down wards as they went.  

They emerged unscathed, the sound of running feet heading their way.  By common, silent consensus, they parted ways.  The clocksmith stepped into the shadows and was gone, the mage headed down the alley, and Leliana stepped into the street.  She crossed the wide avenue and paused in the shadow of an arch.  Bells began to ring, calling, _fire, fire_.  

Time to go.

*****

Bright magelights cast deep, sharp-edged shadows, and it was possible to pass through large sections of Minrathous without ever stepping into the light.  Leliana left the noble district and passed through the Night Market, filled with people hawking just about anything that might be imagined—pretty boys and girls, cloth, devices intricate and rare, magical services.  The only things that were not for sale were the illegal things that were dealt through Half-Deep.

Above them, ever-present, lights burned in the windows of the Minrathous mage towers.  The better neighborhoods huddled close to those towers, as of for warmth.

Past the Night Market was a small neighborhood of houses that were graciously aging, their white stone walls only crumbling a little around the edges.  Leliana counted three streets and then turned left and left again, finding herself in a quiet dead end.  There were nine doors; she approached the fourth on the right.

The door opened before she had a chance to knock, and she was beckoned within by a silent man, the way he moved speaking volumes of his combat expertise.  He waved his hand up the stairs and Leliana nodded to him as he closed and barred the door behind her.

There was one door open upstairs, light spilling into the hallway.  Inside, the room was well-lit and lined with books, comfortable chairs and tables piled high with papers and books and scrolls scattered around seemingly at random.  The occupant of the room rose, and her smile was brighter than the magelights.  “You have come,” she said.  “Ah, I was so worried!”

“There was nothing to fear,” Leliana said, stepping forward to take the other woman’s hands in hers.  Then she pulled her close in a hug.  “Amity, ah, I am glad to see you!”

Amity’s body molded to hers, and Leliana breathed in her scent, perfume with the chilly scent of a mage beneath.  “Ah, Pivoine.  I canceled my appointment for this evening in hopes you would return.  Your things are downstairs—clever woman, to pay the vegetable seller to bring them.”  Her voice held just the edge of an Fereldan accent.  

Leliana chuckled.  “You make fun of me, dear, calling me that.”

“Never!  You are terribly unfair, Leliana.”  Amity claimed Leliana’s lips, and for a long moment Leliana drowned herself in the feel of the other woman’s mouth, her body pressed against hers.  _This is not real_, she reminded herself.  But for the moment, she was willing to believe in this terribly fragile illusion.

Amity was a Daughter of Silence, and with the Daughters one could never be sure what was truth and what was lie.  They were one of the many echoes of the Empire’s past worship; once the handmaidens of the Dragon of Silence, now they were an organization only slightly less secretive than the sundowners.

She broke the kiss, and Amity took Leliana’s shoulders in her hands, scrutinizing her.  “You smell of smoke and of blood.  You were successful?”

“I was.  There will be other magisters who try to cause trouble, but none who will choose that particular way.”

“I still cannot believe he used the Grey Wardens!  Shame on him.”  Amity let Leliana go.  “You need a bath, I think.  Let me call for one.  You will be off in the morning, yes?”

She closed her eyes briefly, willing the pain to pass.  “I will be.  I have an appointment with the Bone Queen, and then I will go south.”

“Tch.  Well, if you _must_ go—”  There was an impish twinkle in the woman’s dark eyes, but there was also some sorrow—or at least the appearance of it.  “I will make this last night we have together a memorable one, yes?”

The words forced themselves out of Leliana’s throat.  “Come with me.”

Amity’s eyebrows shot up.  “I wish I could, little dove.  But Ferelden is no place for such as I.  Ah, if you could see the look on your face—!”  She cupped Leliana’s face in her hands.  “Do not be so sad, my dear.  Life is long, and you travel widely.  It may be that some day you will find yourself on my doorstep once more.  I will miss you terribly, but I will look forward to more stories of your Grey Warden and her little harem.”  She smiled and kissed Leliana’s forehead.  “Come, I will heat the bath for you.”

Leliana gave in, and followed her out.

They used the remainder of the night very well indeed, filled with kisses and sighs and whispers of _yes, oh, there, just like that._  They had played such games in the months Leliana had spent in Minrathous, but she wanted her last memories of this city to be gentle ones, and Amity seemed to be of the same mind.  

They lay curled together, sunlight beginning to creep between the shutters and play on the walls, and Leliana wondered idly if Amity was going to betray her.  It would be so easy for her, and she would reap rich rewards.  All it would take would be a word in the right ear, and...

Marjolaine laughed in the back of her mind.  _We are alike, you and I.  More with every passing year.  Betray her before she has a chance to betray you, my sweet._

Leliana ignored the voice, the memory of standing on a bluff above a wind-wracked sea with the woman she had once loved.  “I should go,” she whispered into Amity’s tangled hair.

“Before you do...”  The other woman rolled over, and pulled out from beneath the bed a heavily carved wooden box.  “I have something for you.  It belongs in Ferelden, but I have never had the opportunity to send it back.”  She opened the box and lifted out a necklace, and handed it to Leliana.

The bard’s throat closed.

This was—

“It belonged to my father,” Amity said.  “When he helped her escape the Chantry in Ferelden, he gave her this as a token of safe passage.  The Wardens passed her from hand to hand, across the sea and into Tevinter.”  She rested her gaze on the scratched vial that served as a pendant, engraved words still visible through the tarnish.  _In death, sacrifice._  “She told me, before she died, that I would need to take it to Ferelden some day.  I believe she hoped that I would go myself, and meet my father.  I always meant to, but...I ran out of time.  He died at the beginning of the Blight.”

“What was his name?” Leliana asked.

“Duncan, my mother said.”  Amity smiled, a little wan.  “I suppose at first the idea of traveling to Ferelden was a bit daunting.  And then I became a Daughter, and I was a little afraid of what he would think of me.  He was very kind, my mother always said.  She met him in the Ferelden Circle of Magi, when she was still an apprentice.”

“I traveled with some Wardens who had served under him for a time.”  Leliana closed her hand around the Warden’s Oath in her palm.  “Your mother was right, I think.  Not all Grey Wardens are good people, but he was.”

It had been rumored that Amity had some connection to the Grey Wardens—it was for that connection and her reputation as someone with some training in the bardic arts that had brought Leliana to her door in the first place—but this was something she’d never expected.  Amity brushed the hair out of Leliana’s eyes.  “Do with it as you see fit,” she said, her voice soft.  “Return it to the Ferelden Wardens, or take it to my father’s grave.  It should be there with him.”

Leliana looked into Amity’s shining eyes and decided not to tell her that while there was a memorial, there was no grave.  Duncan’s body had never been found.  “I will,” she said, and leaned in to kiss Amity.  “I know just the place for it.”

Then there was no more talking for a time, and when Leliana left the house she had the Warden’s Oath safely around her own neck, hidden beneath her shirt.

*****

A few hours later, she was once again below the city, in the catacombs.  “I had her washed,” the Bone Queen said, affecting boredom.  Her narrowed eyes and stiff shoulders belied her tone.  Murena crouched beside the chair, visibly unhappy.  The girl’s hair was a light blonde, surprisingly enough, and someone had taken some care with washing and combing it.  She was wearing a child’s robe, ragged but clean.  “Murena, you belong to Pivoine now.  Go with her, and learn well.”

The child rose, and slouched over to Leliana.  She did not speak, instead chewing on her lower lip.  “Thank you,” Leliana said to Vitula.  “I will take care of her.”

“See that you do,” the Bone Queen said.  “Off with you, then.”  There was a moment of silence when their eyes met, when Leliana could see all of the things that Vitula could not say.  She was trapped here, in her court of bones.  The ruthless Queen was capable of love—even if she would never admit it was so.

Leliana took Murena’s hand, and the girl offered no resistance as she led her out of the ossuary and to the street.  She knew what it looked like—the trade in children was not unknown here in Half-Deep—and she cared little. Fortunately, they were near the edge of the city.  It was only a short walk through crowds of refugees to one of the places where caravan-masters called out their destinations and prices, each competing with the others for custom.

They passed through a crowd of refugees, who looked to be newly come to Minrathous.  “Fresh meat,” she heard Murena mutter, and she saw that the street children were filtering through the crowd, brushing their hands against belt pouches and pockets.  They avoided Leliana.

“Do you speak any Fereldan?” she asked the girl.  

“No, _messime_.”  Murena avoided her gaze, looking steadily towards a horizon obscured by the bodies of refugees and crumbling buildings.

“We’ll have to fix that.  A month or two in Cumberland, I think.  We’ll want spring to be well underway before we sail for Ferelden.”  Murena nodded, but did not look at her.

She could well imagine what Murena was feeling.  She had felt the same, on the day she left Lady Cecile’s house.  The uncertainty of the future had been both terrifying and thrilling, and Leliana could only think that Murena must doubt the intentions of her new mistress.  She did not know what Murena had been told, but it was not a subject for the street.

They found a caravan and bought passage; less than an hour later, they were ensconced in a creaking wagon towed by a grumbling pair of oxen.  The ride was teeth-loosening, but it was better than walking.  Murena peered over the side of the wagon, watching the countryside go by.

There were no inquiries other than the usual as they left Minrathous proper and headed south.  It appeared as though the _jeu_, even if it had not gone to plan, at least had the law confused enough that Leliana was going to be able to make an escape with none the wiser.

There truly was nothing quite like making a clean getaway.  Even if it _had_ come with an...encumbrance.

Idly, she wondered how Kathil and the rest were getting on.  Probably driving the staff at Castle Redcliffe quietly mad, she thought.  She smiled as she thought about the exasperated look that Bann Teagan—no, _Arl_ Teagan now—had to be wearing.  And Jowan had to be spending a most miserable winter indeed, probably hiding in some hovel outside of Redcliffe.  Or perhaps the tavern basement.  With the spiders.

Ah, that was a pleasant thought, indeed.

She settled in for the ride, making plans.  Murena would need clothes, and she was young enough that she would have an easy time picking up a few new languages.  It was surprisingly good to have an apprentice, to have someone to take care of, who needed her.  

To have something akin to family, once more.

She put Amity out of her mind for the moment.  It had been nothing; surely the Daughter of Silence had been using Leliana just as Leliana had been using her.  She’d return the Oath to Highever, where Duncan’s memorial stood, or perhaps she would simply give it to Alistair when she saw him next.

On the other hand...no.  There would be far too many awkward questions, and there were likely to be a number of those anyway.  She could talk Kathil into taking the long way from Redcliffe to Amaranthine, she was sure of it.  They could pass through Highever on the way.  

When the sun slanted down towards the horizon, Murena curled up with her head on Leliana’s leg.  They would be in Cumberland in three weeks, and take ship a month after that.  She stroked the girl’s hair, saw in her pug-nosed face both the potential for beauty and a reflection of her mother’s power.  

They would slip out of Tevinter, and let the quiet foxes sleep for the moment.  In her pack, she carried evidence that could start any number of wars, in the right hands.  Faced with evidence that Tevinter was turning its gaze south, both Nevarra and Ferelden would stir themselves, and Orlais would likely follow.

The caravan lurched south, and Leliana’s hand strayed often to the vial she wore under her shirt.  

_Life is long.  We will meet again._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blows dust off story* Hi! Did you miss me? And here I come back and I bring you a Leliana chapter, of all things!
> 
> Regular updates resume as of, well, now-ish, since my non-writing life has calmed down a bit. Thanks to all of you who have been most patient.
> 
> Yes, for those who have read The Calling, Amity's mother is Vivian. It's not a coincidence that she and Leliana met, and that's all I will say about that for the moment. :)


	16. A Thing That Wolves Fear

_Zevran:_

Their daughter was born at the end of a fierce spring storm, arriving just as the winds calmed and all was still.

He’d been with Kathil through so many battles, spent so much time waiting for Wynne to reassemble her into something resembling a mage.  This was a different kind of battle, and he didn’t know precisely what to _do_.  

Fortunately, Ilse had things well in hand.  “Jowan, heat some water.  Blood temperature, no hotter.  _You_ two, hold her hands.  It’s not going to be long.”  The midwife’s face was drawn with fatigue; they had all been awake for over a day.  Kathil was narrow-hipped, and her labor had been difficult.

Ilse and Ser Rylock had arrived about a month ago, and had settled in more or less to stay.  The Templar was decidedly unhappy about being here.  She’d made herself scarce once Kathil’s labor had gotten genuinely underway, Zevran noted absently.  

Lorn sat next to the bed; Fiann paced worriedly in the hall.  Zevran stepped around the Mabari, receiving only a flick of an ear in acknowledgement of his presence.  The dog’s full attention was on his mistress.  Zevran pulled up a stool to one side of the bed, and Cullen did the same on the other side.  They were in one of the larger rooms near the kitchen, close enough that they could hear the howling of the wind in the tree hall.  Kathil was soaked with sweat, and she darted her eyes over to Zevran.  “I hear—this is almost over—”  She swallowed, and licked her lips.  Dark circles beneath her eyes stood out against her reddened skin.  

“A little more, _mi alma_.  Do you need anything?”

She closed her eyes and put her head back against the pillow briefly.  “Someone else to be doing this for me?  Maker’s _Breath—_”

He took one of her hands in both of his, and felt her hand clench on his.  “Good,” Ilse said.  “Kathil, you must push, now.”

Kathil nodded, and he felt more than heard her breath catch in her throat.  Zevran exchanged a glance with Cullen as a sound emanated from Kathil, a low groan that seemed to come from deep within her.  Lorn whined.

“I can see the head,” Ilse called.  “Good, my girl, good.  One or two more, just like that.”

Kathil caught her breath and her jaw clenched.  Zevran could barely breathe.  The walls were so close, the edges of his vision darkening—

“_Breathe_, Zevran,” Cullen hissed.  Startled, he straightened and gulped air.  _And would it not be ironic that it would be the assassin who faints?_

Kathil’s eyes flew open, and her back arched.

_No._

Lightning played across her body, and Ilse gave a wordless cry.  Kathil’s pupils—he couldn’t see them for the _movement_ within them, the waters of the Fade shifting.  A shadow fell over the room, the lamps dimming.  He looked at Cullen, mouthing, _do something._

Without taking his eyes off of Kathil’s face, the Templar shook his head.  _Wait._

The lighting playing over Kathil’s skin sent sparkling pain up Zevran’s bare arms.  Heedless of the danger, he leaned over and put his lips close to her ear.  “A little more, my Grey Warden.  My love.  My Kathil.  _Mi alma._  Remember.  Remember.  Remember—”

She closed her eyes, and the lightning snuffed as if it had never been.  Her grip on his hand redoubled, and he heard a stifled sound from Cullen.  Her lips moved as if in prayer, though it might as easily been a string of silent obscenities.

She writhed, and there was a sharp sound from the end of the bed.  “There!”  And then, a sound—

A thin wail that quickly grew into a lusty cry, a child protesting at this large and cold world that it suddenly found itself in.  “A girl,” Ilse said.  “Hale and hearty, if that crying is anything to go by.  Jowan, where is that water?”

And then there was a great fussing, the cutting of the cord and a quick cleanup of one damp and bloody infant.  “You two take this little one, I’ve some more work to do with Kathil,” Ilse said.  

“_More?_” Kathil groaned.  “Haven’t I done enough?”

“A little bit more,” the midwife said, full of cheer.  “A few more things and then I can leave you alone for a bit.”  She turned to Zevran and Cullen and Jowan, who were clustered near the door.  Zevran was holding the wrigglesome, blanket-wrapped baby.  “Out, you three.  I’ll call you in when it’s time.”  They hesitated, and Ilse gave them a pointed look.  “_Now_.”

They got out.  

Jowan turned the lamps up in the kitchen.  The baby’s wailing had died down to a discontented fussing, and for the first time Zevran got a good look at his—_their_—daughter.  She had wide, dark eyes in a face that was much like all of the other newborns he could remember seeing, all red and a bit squashy.  But she had all of her fingers and toes, all the expected bits in the right places, and Zevran breathed a quiet sigh of relief.  (How much time had Kathil spent worrying, how many nights had been sleepless, wondering if Jowan’s spell would be enough to keep the poison in her blood from affecting their child?) She looked up at Zevran, her gaze unfocused.

There were memories that would always stay with him.  The moment that he fell in love with his daughter was one of them.

Cullen was at his shoulder.  Silently, Zevran handed the baby to him, and Cullen took her exactly as if he had been handling babies all of his life.  He could see a look on the Templar’s face that he assumed was reflected on his own, a kind of fragile wonder.  “She’s beautiful,” he said.  (And it was true, but it was always true, was it not?  She was beautiful because she was theirs.)

Lorn had followed them, and Cullen bent a bit to let the Mabari see.  Lorn sniffed at the baby, gave one approving wag of his stumpy tail, and before Cullen could straighten gave the baby a lick with his very long and very wet tongue.  Laughing, Cullen got the baby out of the dog’s reach, and Zevran had an abrupt vision of a little girl spending her entire childhood covered in dog drool.

There was a sharp cry from the hall beyond the kitchen, and they all turned toward the door.  Lorn trotted purposefully out of the kitchen, towards Kathil.  “You boyos can come back now,” Ilse called.  When they entered the room, Ilse was bundling something up in a scrap of blanket.  Kathil had rearranged herself, propped up in a seated position, a blanket over her lap.  She spied Cullen with the baby, and held her arms out silently.

Cullen crossed the room to put the child into her arms.  The babe fussed, waving the arm it had managed to wriggle free of the blanket.  “Hey, you,” she said, her voice hoarse and tired.  “Welcome to the world.”

A few minutes later, the child had nursed briefly for the first time and was lying naked on Kathil’s chest, a blanket tucked around them both.  Ilse, seeing that all was well, left the room, and Jowan followed.

“The bed’s narrow, but maybe you both can wedge in?” Kathil said, glancing between him and Cullen.  Her relationship with Cullen, such as it was, was a tenuous thing, the two of them doing a dance around some very large questions that neither of them was willing to ask right at the moment.  But right now, all of that seemed to be put to rest by mutual accord.

“We _could_ move to another room,” Zevran suggested.  He and Kathil might fit in this bed, but Cullen was going to be half hanging out, and he was not willing to suggest that their Templar be sent away right now.

Kathil closed her eyes, stroking the baby’s back with two fingers.  “I don’t think walking’s a very good idea.”

“I said nothing about walking, no?”  And Cullen had lit up with understanding, and in a moment Zevran was holding an armful of baby while Cullen scooped up a protesting mage.  

Kathil kicked one leg out.  “I didn’t—Cullen, put me _down_—”

“In a bit.”  Cullen grinned at Kathil, and she rolled her eyes and relaxed.  Zevran raised an eyebrow; that was more humor than he’d seen from the Templar in regards to their Warden lately.  They moved mother and daughter into the bedroom that Zevran usually shared with Kathil, which had a bigger bed.  Slightly.  It was still a tight fit for three adults and an infant, but they managed.  

Lorn settled down on a pile of blankets with a heavy sigh.  Fiann padded in and flopped down beside him.  The pup was no longer so much of a pup.  Her back was nearly as long as Lorn’s, and her head nearly overtopped his.  She only weighed about half of what the mature wardog did; she would gain muscle and bone over the next two years.  Right now, she looked about half-finished, still gangly.

Zevran was curled carefully on Kathil’s left side, his forehead against her hair.  “Have you come to a decision about a name?” he asked.  He was watching the baby, asleep once more on Kathil’s chest.  He could see a curve of bald head, a small fist curled around an errant lock of her mother’s hair.  

Kathil’s hand stilled.  “I think Cerys suits her, don’t you?  Of all the names we discussed...”

“Cerys.”  Cullen reached out and touched the infant’s clenched fist.  “I like it.”

“And you know my opinion,” Zevran added.  It had been one of his favorites of the names they had talked about late into the night in the last few months.  _An old Ferelden name,_ Kathil had said.  _There was a book I found in the library with a heroine named Cerys.  I read the book until the binding fell apart, and then I kept the pages under my bed. _

They had spoken of other names—Dane or Carwyn for a boy, Mair for a girl—but Cerys had been the best of them.  Verdad had been under serious consideration for a time, but Kathil had wanted a Fereldan name for the baby.  

“Cerys it is.”  Kathil took a deep breath, and her eyes fluttered closed.  She was asleep before she took another breath.  Cullen, ever quick to follow others into sleep, was asleep soon after.

Zevran remained wakeful.  He tested the thought _I am a father_ gingerly, as a tongue might probe a sore tooth.  He’d had second thoughts, and third and fourth thoughts, for months.  Now the child was here, and it was all abruptly quite real.

As were certain...regrettable facts.

It was a good thing that he and the Dalish had never had much in common, despite his abortive attempt to live with them as a boy.  But even the city elves would see him and this family, such as it was, and see betrayal.

_Never the easy path, Aranai._

Still.  Sometimes it was the difficult path that held the most riches.  And if he were to be honest with himself, they had so many _other_ problems looming that this one was going to seem quite small next to them.

If the day came that the worst of their problems was the anger of some elves over what he’d chosen to do with his personal life, they would all be most pleased.

Zevran closed his eyes.  He could hear, very faintly, the rumbling roar of an adult dragon, communicating itself through the stone of the temple.  The drakes were leaving to hunt, as they did every few nights.  They would always go out just after a storm, to hunt down anything that might have been weakened by the weather.  

He listened to the breathing of the others in the bed, Templar, mage, and infant daughter, and his dreams when they came were filled with dragon wings.

*****

_Jowan:_

No matter how early he rose, Rylock always managed to beat him to the kitchen.

“I don’t know how you do it,” he told her, slumping down in one of the chairs with a cup of tea in his hands.  Their supply of their tisane was running low—their supply of _everything_ except dragonlings and mud was running low—and over the last few weeks the tea had gone from the rich brown he favored to a light tan, far too close to water for his liking.  “I thought _I_ was a morning person.”

“Habit,” the Templar told him.  Not only was she awake, but she was fully dressed, her hair braided nearly back and with a gimlet look in her eye.  “They used to roust us out of bed a couple of hours before dawn and make us run with packs on our backs until the sun came up.”

“And you _volunteered_ for that?”

Rylock lifted an eyebrow.  “They didn’t mention it when they recruited me.  Drink your tea, mage.  It’ll wake you up.”

“Not like there’s a lot to be awake for.”  Jowan blew on his cup, then carefully sipped.  “Kathil and the rest won’t be up for a bit—”

From the rooms beyond the kitchen there came the sound of a baby’s wail rising.

“Unless the baby turns out to be a morning person too,” Jowan finished.  He ran a hand through his sleep-disheveled hair.  “I should probably heat up some more water.”

The Templar watched him as he shambled over to the large jar they kept the day’s supply of water in.  She and Ilse had been here for a month or so, long enough for the two of them to get somewhat used to each others’ presence, though evidently not nearly long enough for Rylock’s tolerance of casual use of magic to increase at all.  She had stopped making comments, though, after the fire had gone out one cold night; he’d come into the kitchen in the morning to find her swearing and fumbling with flint and steel, her fingers stiff and uncooperative.  

Rylock had looked relieved to have him light the fire, though she wouldn’t have admitted it, not then and not now.  Still, she’d ceased at least most of the snide recitations of verses from the Chant of Light.  It was a truce, sort of.  He’d take it.

“When do you think you’ll be off, then?” Rylock asked now, as he filled the kettle from the jar.  

“As soon as Kathil feels well enough to travel, I assume.”  He muttered a word under his breath, and felt the water in the kettle warm to his power.  “She wants to make Amaranthine by the beginning of summer, and I think we have a stop or two to make on the way.”

“And you’ll leave the demon here for the rest of us to deal with.”

Jowan set the kettle on the hearth with exaggerated care.  He turned to see Rylock leaning back.  Any time that the Templar did anything that was even remotely like lounging, he was wary.  She was _terrible_ at looking casual.  “Didn’t Kathil explain that to you?”

Rylock’s lips twitched.  “Loudly.  At some length.”

He snorted.  “You’re lucky you got off with just the yelling.”

“Yes, well.”  She picked up her tea and sipped meditatively.  “Do you really believe it’ll stay in the forest?”

“It doesn’t have much choice, really.  The Veil beyond the edge of the forest is strong.”  He came back over to sit at the table.  The wailing had ceased.  “There have been things living here for a long time.  If it wasn’t this demon, it would have been another one.”

“It still doesn’t make it _right_.”

“Doesn’t make what right?”  Kathil was framed by the doorway, dressed only in a shirt far too big for her—Cullen’s, it looked like—and a pair of socks.  “And have either of you seen Ilse?”

“What are you doing up, Warden?” Rylock asked, going from attempting to look relaxed to on her feet and stiffly upright in a heartbeat.  “We haven’t seen Ilse yet, I think she’s asleep.”    Jowan scrambled for the hearth, hastening to make more tea.

“I’m thirsty, hungry, and I have some questions for Ilse.”  She caught herself in a yawn, and shook her head.  “Maker’s Breath, Jowan, _thank _you.”  She accepted the cup from him with hands that shook only a little.  

“Back to bed,” Rylock said in a voice that spoke of long experience ordering people around.  “You look about half-dead.”

“I’ve been worse.  Still.  I don’t suppose there’s any chance of breakfast?”  She looked hopeful.  “I’ve healed myself a bit, but there’s things that aren’t quite in the right place—”

“We don’t need to know!”  Jowan waved one hand in an attempt to interrupt.  “Breakfast, we can do.  Go, Kathil.  We’ll bring in some food for you and Cullen and Zevran.  And send in Ilse when she wakes up.”

Kathil retreated, thankfully without insisting that they explain to her what they had been discussing.  The combination of being hugely pregnant, having a Templar around who didn’t particularly approve of her (despite the fact that she had brought the midwife), and Ilse’s incessant mothering had made her increasingly snappish—and the topic of the demon in the forest was not one she enjoyed discussing.  

Jowan and Rylock put together a meal for them all, talking as little as possible.  The dogs came trotting into the kitchen, hopeful for scraps, and Jowan gave them some of the meat from the day before yesterday's hunt.  “We’ll have to go out again this afternoon,” he said to Rylock.  

“Likely.”  She never did ask why it was always Jowan, Lorn, and Fiann who went out hunting.  Jowan suspected that she didn’t want to know.  “Here, stir this.  If I know Ilse, she’s hidden away some dried apples somewhere around here.”  

Jowan stirred the portion while Rylock poked around in some of the shadowy corners of the kitchen.  Lorn and Fiann lay by him, each working on cleaning off a bone from the deer they had brought down the other day.  Lorn paused, raising his head, ears pricking.  He cocked his head, looking towards the door that led to room that Jowan called the tree hall.  His soft whine deepened and became a low, noncommittal growl.

The Mabari got to his feet and walked purposefully toward the door.  “Rylock,” Jowan said, keeping his voice low.  “Something’s wrong.”  He pulled the porridge away from the fire, keeping it close enough that it would stay warm.

The Templar was already picking up her sword and shield from the weapons rack at the far side of the kitchen.  “I noticed,” she said dryly.  “Let’s go.”  Ahead of them, Lorn nosed open the door, and his growl went from _not quite sure what’s going on_ to _I most sincerely do not approve_.

Beyond the kitchen, there was the sound of leathery wings unfolding, and Jowan swore.

At least this time, he had shoes on.

Fiann slipped past Lorn into the large room beyond, snarling and barking and raising a fuss.  Jowan broke into a run—if he let Fiann get hurt Cullen would never forgive him.  Lorn evidently had the same idea, shoving the pup with his shoulder, ordering her almost audibly to _shut up_.  

The drake had been poking around in the roots of the tree.  The beast was a good twenty feet from nose to lashing tail-tip.  Another, smaller drake clung to the craggy bark of the tree trunk, making rough coughing noise that Jowan knew from experience was a signal to any other dragonkin in the vicinity: _Trouble_.

They’d had minor invasions of the draconic variety before; the drakes would smell their food and come investigate if they were hungry enough, down through the broken dome of the temple ceiling.  They had usually come one at a time, though, and generally they would flee when confronted.  The large drake was fanning its wings, something like defiance in its flat stare.  Fleeing was evidently not in its game plan for the day.

Rylock stepped to the side, intent on flanking the larger drake.  “Hold a moment—” Jowan called, and in the next breath cast one of his favorite fire spells on the drake.  The dragon screamed and focused its attention on Jowan.  

He scampered to the side, and the drake lunged.  He dodged its jaws and sent another stream of fire into its face.  It backwinged, and then writhed furiously as two Mabari and a Templar brought their weaponry to bear on each flank.  He tossed a stunning spell on it and was gratified when the creature froze in place.

Now, where had that other drake gone?

A hard blast of air from above answered that question.  He stumbled backward as the drake backwinged and set down—followed by two more, both nearly as big as the one that Rylock and the Mabari were fighting.  The odds had gone from largely in their favor to _we may not survive this_ in breathtakingly short order.

Kathil was likely in no condition to fight, not that it would stop her—and she and Cullen and Zevran were in the back part of the Temple, out of earshot and too far away to get her in time to make a difference anyway.  One of the three new drakes circled, scaled head low, focusing on Rylock.  She was busily carving on the large drake, and not paying attention behind her.

It took so little time to come to a decision.  He snatched the little knife from his belt and opened a long cut on his forearm, murmuring the words of a prayer and a spell, calling blood to blood.  Dragons were among the most difficult of creatures to bring under control.  As the Veil ripped wide and the blood leash whipped out to touch the drake’s head, he sent a wordless prayer—_just a bit of luck, please_—

The blood leash snapped taut, and held.

The drake thrashed, screeching, and he directed it into the air, bending its will to his purpose.  He saw the large drake collapse and saw Rylock turn, and perhaps that narrowing of her eyes presaged disaster.  He couldn’t consider it; wrestling with the soul of the drake took all of his concentration.  The enthralled drake turned on its fellows, leaping onto the back of one of its smaller compatriots and fastening its claws in the other’s shoulders, fouling both of its wings.  Both drakes were screaming, the Mabari were howling, and a blur barreled past Jowan—a shirtless Zevran, two blades out and ready.  Cullen followed close behind.  

The next few minutes were a blur.  Rylock took the head of one of the drakes, Cullen took another.  The Mabari shredded the wings of the one that Jowan controlled, preventing it from flying upward, and Zevran finished it off as Jowan let go of the control spell.  A rustle from above made them all look up.  There was a shadow, and then the sound of beating wings, fading away.  Evidently drakes were intelligent enough to realize when they were outclassed.

Something hit Jowan from the side, slammed him into an enormous tree root.  The world went briefly dark as his head hit wood, his mouth filling with the taste of blood.  There was something cold and sharp at his throat, and Rylock’s face was close to his own.  “Maleficar,” she said, the word poison on her tongue.

He swallowed blood, and grimaced.  “Blood mage.  True.  The Wardens don’t care.  Most of them,” he amended, as he remembered the story Kathil had told him about the erstwhile Warden-General.

There was a long, silent moment where the Templar’s gaze bored into his own, pinning him to the wood as much as the knife at his throat.  “Did the demon in the forest teach you?”

He couldn’t move without possibly slitting his own throat on her blade.  “No.  My knowledge comes from books, mostly.  I don’t deal with demons.”

One breath, then two; Rylock pulled her steel from Jowan’s throat, gave him another shove for good measure, and stalked away.  “Never thought I’d see the day when I missed _Anders_,” he heard her mutter.  

“Tch.  It seems you have, as they say, blown your chances with the pretty Templar,” Zevran said.  He and Cullen were standing nearly shoulder to shoulder, next to one of the dead drakes.  “Too bad.  I think you were making headway.”

He rubbed his throat, and his hand came away bloody.  She’d cut the skin of his neck slightly.  “I wasn’t trying to bed her, Zevran.  I was just trying to have us not kill each other.”  He grimaced.  “Seems I almost didn’t manage that one.”

“So you say.”  The elf gave him a lopsided smile.  “I think we should be off sooner rather than later, no?  The high dragon may decide to investigate where her drakes have gone.”

“I don’t think she could fit through the hole in the roof,” Cullen said.  “Why did they come down now?  I’d have thought they would have tried that before.”

“Beginning of the hungry season,” Jowan said.  “Game’s getting scarce, everything that was going to get winter-killed has died.  I think we ought to pack up, if Kathil’s up to the walk.  We can at least get out of the forest, maybe to Little Oakford.”

“I’m up to it,” Kathil said from the doorway.  She was fully dressed now, holding the baby.  “I don’t think we can afford for me not to be.  What’s got Rylock in a snit?  She charged past me without so much as a _nice dragon weather we’re having_.”

“We were outnumbered,” Jowan said.  “I, ah, used one of those spells I’m not supposed to know.  Saved her life, probably, but...”  He shrugged one shoulder.

She gave him a long look, and quirked the scarred side of her mouth.  “You seem to have a soft spot for Templars, lately.”

“I’m going soft in the head, is all.”  He shifted, aware of the scrutiny of several pairs of eyes.  

“Clearly.”  She took a breath, and glanced down at her daughter.  “Well.  Let’s get packed up, gentlemen.  I’m not looking forward to this, but this place has served its purpose.”

They all nodded.  The Mabari were tearing into the belly of the large drake with wet rending noises.  Evidently dragon liver was extremely tasty, if you were a warhound.  They left them; better that they had something to do that didn’t involve getting underfoot.

They had surprisingly little to pack.  They were near to the end of their supplies, and the camping gear didn’t take up much room.  Ilse had shown Kathil how to fashion a sort of sling out of cloth that could be adjusted, so all of them could take turns carrying the baby.  It was the sort of thing a freeholder would wear out into the fields, to carry an infant without hampering movement.  

Jowan was finished packing first, and Kathil appeared in the kitchen to hand him the baby—Cerys, she said they’d named her—and vanish back into the bedroom she shared with Zevran.  The babe seemed content to sleep, fortunately.  Jowan hadn’t ever had much to do with babies, other than talking over the possibility of them with Lily, several lifetimes ago.  He wasn't sure what he’d do if she woke up and started crying.  _I suppose I’d think of something._

He thought of the life he and Lily had planned in whispers, the little farmhold in the middle of nowhere, a cottage built with their own hands, children underfoot.  Cerys stirred and stretched in her sleep, and he shifted her a bit on his lap so he could see her face a bit better.  

_My niece._  He tried the term on for size.  She had a nose that turned up a bit, and a brow that reminded him a bit of Zevran’s.  It was hard to see much of either Kathil or Cullen in her, though he supposed that might change as she grew.   She was still a bit squashed-looking from being born.

Rylock and Ilse moved purposefully in and out of the kitchen; Lorn and Fiann trotted in, the front halves of each of the dogs covered in dragon blood and bits of gore.  They plunked themselves down before the dying fire, looking pleased with themselves.

Ilse came into the kitchen, carrying her worn pack.  “May I?” she asked.  “I haven’t gotten to hold this little one yet.”  Jowan handed her the baby, who woke briefly but was soothed quickly back to sleep.  

“I should go see if anyone needs help.”  He didn’t move from his chair.  There were questions he wanted to ask, but he had no idea _how_.  “Is Rylock...is she all right?  I didn’t see if she was hurt during the dragon fight.”

“Gwen is fine.  Well, physically, at least.  She had a few cuts, nothing serious.”  The midwife gave him a narrow-eyed glance.  “That wasn’t what you meant to ask, young man.”

He rubbed one temple; the headache from having his head slammed into a tree hadn’t yet abated, and his ears were still ringing.  “I don’t even know...she knew what I was.  Didn’t she?  I mean, everyone’s heard the stories about what happened in Redcliffe.”  _And why do I even care?_

He feared the answer to that question.  That, and so many others.

Ilse turned her attention to the baby she held.  “I think,” she said, apparently speaking to Cerys, “that spitting suspected maleficars on Templar steel is a very different prospect from actually getting to know one.  You put your braes on one leg at a time, boyo.  I don’t think that knowledge makes Gwen very happy.”

No, he didn’t suppose it would.  Just like it didn’t make him very happy to discover that the same Templar who had demanded that the Circle hang poor Anders for attempting to have a life outside of the Tower was a woman who liked to read adventure stories about the qunari and had a wicked snowball throwing arm on her.  And who had a pretty smile, when she was pleased.

“I understand that,” he said.  “Well.  We’ll part at Little Oakford, and she can forget all about it.”

The midwife snorted gently.  “Two sovereigns says she ends up at Vigil’s Keep by next winter.”

“You’re on.”  He grinned.  “And if she shows up wanting to join the Wardens, I’ll throw something extra on top.”

“A good mule,” Ilse said.  There was a mischievous look on her lined face.  “With two mules, I could hire them out as a team to the farmers who can’t afford to keep a mule of their own.  Would make the winters a sight more comfortable, to have a bit of extra socked away in the larder.”

He felt just a touch of dismay.  “You’re going to encourage her, aren’t you?”

Cerys woke, yawned, and then started making small, discontented noises.  Ilse rocked her a bit.  “I love Gwen dearly, but she’s never really fit anywhere.  The Templars have given her a good home, and most of them seem to respect her, but I know she’s capable of so much more.”  She stood as the baby’s grousing threatened to turn into full-scale crying.  “I’m going to get this one to her mother, she’s hungry.”  Ilse smiled at Jowan and carried Cerys towards the back of the temple, vanishing into the hallway beyond the kitchen.

Jowan sat in silence.  The Mabari were enthusiastically licking each other’s faces.  “I think I just got gulled,” he told them.  Fiann looked over at him, tail wagging, but Lorn pinned her down and started cleaning out one of her ears.  Fiann pulled a long-suffering face, but let him.

_Maybe I can get Kathil to assign me elsewhere.  Ostagar?  Maybe the Anderfels..._

He put his head in his hands, praying that Ser Rylock would be entirely unwilling to uproot her life and join the Wardens.  

Unfortunately, neither the Maker nor his Bride were in the habit of listening to Jowan’s entreaties.

*****

_Cullen:_

The hair prickled on the back of his neck.  They were not alone.

Then again, they were never alone, walking through the Brecilian Forest.

He was wearing the sling with Cerys in it, as well as his pack.  It wasn’t ideal—he wouldn’t be able to quickly draw his sword in case of trouble—but they did have Ser Rylock with them for the moment.  Besides, he was quickly becoming accustomed to the warm weight of the infant against him, beneath his cloak.  

Just because it was spring enough for the snow to have turned to mud and for some of the braver flowers to poke their blossoms above ground didn’t mean that the air was anything like warm.  Cold mud had found its way through several holes in his boots.  Kathil was wincing as she walked, but she stayed silent.  

And now the already-unnatural hush of the forest had deepened into a silence that was broken only by the sounds of their feet squelching on the path.  In the sling, Cerys stirred, and he willed her to go back to sleep.  

There was a flash of movement at the low ridgeline above their heads.  Another, and another—small enough to be people, too many to be the demon, he hoped.  Not darkspawn, since at this range even Jowan would have felt it.  He relaxed a bit, just for a moment.

Then an arrow flashed over their heads and buried itself with a wet thump in a stump next to the path.

Kathil stopped dead in the path, glaring hard at the ridgeline.  Her blade was naked in her hand.  “Whoever’s up there, you’d best come out.”  Her voice held more than a little irritation.  “Trust me.  I’d hate to endanger the friendship between the Dalish and the Grey, but if I have to, I _will_.”

Belatedly, he realized that the arrow that had been fired was fletched in alternating bands of brown and soft cream, a Dalish pattern.  There was a pause, and then three elves picked their way down the steep slope towards them.  Cullen recognized the tallest as Fenarel, the leader of one the hunters of the clan they had contacted at the beginning of winter.  The other two, both women, moved with a wary grace.  He’d seen them in the camp, but hadn’t learned their names.  

He drew even with Kathil, saw Fenarel’s gaze flick over her evaluatively.  The rest of them had drawn into close ranks around the mage.  “You are leaving,” Fenarel said.  He might have said _you survived_ in that same flat, vaguely disappointed tone.

She sheathed Spellweaver.  At a pointed glare, the rest of them followed suit.  “We are, at that.  Leaving this place to the spirits and the dragonkin.  Who are hungry, by the bye.  You may wish to avoid this part of the forest for a while.”

“We’ve seen them in the sky.”  He looked uncomfortable, still giving Kathil that evaluating look.  “Keeper Merrill gave the hunters a message for you, if we met you.  If you wish the hospitality of the clan, our camp is always open to the Grey.”

The Keeper had more or less thrown them out after she’d discovered that Kathil and Zevran were involved.  Kathil’s eyes narrowed.  “Truly?  I was under the impression that she had little use for me.”

Fenarel held her gaze with his.  “It’s not my business to wonder what the Keeper means.  I merely pass along her message, shemlen.”

“Is your camp still where it was at the beginning of winter?” she asked.

“A mile out of the _setheneran_ to the southwest.  You can make your own way there, I take it?”

“We can.  If you see the Keeper before we do, convey our thanks.”  Under Cullen’s cloak, Cerys stirred, and that was all the warning he got before the baby broke into an aggrieved wail.  “Oh, _honestly_—Cullen—”

He was already freeing the sling from where it crossed his body, handing the baby to Kathil and helping her slip the sling over her head.  “I apologize, Fenarel,” she said.  “Cerys is only a day old, we haven’t yet learned her habits.  She’s probably hungry.”

Cullen was astonished to see the hunter relax.  “Ah,” he muttered, as if a mystery had been solved.  “You travel with such a young child?”

“The temple became a bit more dangerous than we liked.  If you’ll excuse me...”  She turned away, presumably to find a little bit of privacy to feed Cerys.  She didn’t go far, since the demon was still about, but Zevran still went with her.  

“What did you think we did with her?” Cullen asked the elf.

“One never knows what you shemlen might do with children.”  Fenarel shook his head, giving Cullen a sharp look.  “Especially ones that might be...unwelcome.  We have heard stories.”

He could only stare in disbelief.  What the elf had thought had happened, when he saw Kathil not obviously pregnant but no child in evidence...it was something like monstrous.  But—it happened, sometimes.  “Cerys is very much wanted,” he said.  

“Good.”  Behind Fenarel, the two women were eyeing all of them.  One of them retrieved the arrow from the stump, carefully brushing rotted wood off the head and smoothing down the fletching.  Without so much as a farewell, the hunters walked away down the path, vanishing into the trees beyond.

Once Cerys was fed, cleaned up, and happy once more, they set off again.  They made the edge of the forest and went south, coming to the camp hidden in a copse of trees.  The Dalish were as good as their word; though their welcome was not precisely warm, it was present, and soon enough they were settled down around a low fire, curious children coming by to stare at the strangers.  Most of their attention was reserved for the dogs, who seemed to be a source of both fear and fascination.  

With some discomfort, Cullen remembered the statue of the wolf at the edge of the camp, placed with its back to the aravels, stone eyes always looking outward.  

Kathil went to speak to the Keeper, leaving the baby with Zevran.  Lorn followed her, sitting down next to the Keeper’s aravel in an attitude of watchful waiting.  They settled in and pitched their tents within the protective circle of aravels.  Rylock tried to offer to go hunting with a group that was heading out and was rebuffed.  She returned to their fire, visibly annoyed.

A pair of halla strolled by, pausing to glance at them, then move on.  They were accompanied by a heavily cloaked woman, shoulders rounded against the cold.  “I’ve never seen one before,” Ilse said to Cullen, keeping her voice low.  “They’re beautiful.”  

One of the halla switched its short, white-furred tail, as if it had heard and understood the comment.  Fiann was staring at the deer-like creature, her tail thrashing, obviously wondering if it might be a friend, or perhaps good to eat.  He smoothed down the fur on her neck.  “Don’t,” he murmured to the Mabari.  “They’re not food, and they’d probably kick you if you tried to play with them.  And with good reason.”

She turned her liquid eyes on Cullen.  But they look like they’re _fast_, said the tilt of her head and a sidelong glance at the halla.  They would be _fun_.  Please?

The halla stomped one back foot, and moved on.  Fiann heaved a sigh and went back to attempting to dismantle the log Cullen was sitting on.  Her strong jaws splintered the wood with a cracking noise that was evidently satisfying, if the flailing of the hound’s tail was anything to go by.  Cullen glanced over at Zevran.  “She’s been in there an awfully long time, hasn’t she?”

“I imagine the Keeper had a number of things to speak to her about.”  Zevran had Cerys cradled in one arm and was cleaning a dagger with the other, bracing the blade against a branch stump and using a cloth to dig into the crevices.  Across from them, Jowan was working on carving a plain wooden box he’d gotten from the clan’s craftmaster, studiously ignoring them all—especially Rylock, who was somewhat ostentatiously steeling and oiling her blades.  “I am not ready to go in there and demand to know what she has done with our Warden.  Yet.”

“At least there haven’t been any explosions yet.”  A movement at the edge of his vision made him straighten.  “Ah, there she is.”

Kathil climbed down the steps of the aravel.  She was moving stiffly, and Cullen rose to go help her.  Normally, she would have bristled at him for presuming that she needed help; it was a mark of how exhausted she was that she simply took his arm and leaned on him.  After he settled her on the log where he’d been sitting, Lorn came to lie at her feet, between her and the fire.  “That was...interesting.  She offered to have the clan foster Cerys.”

The word was out of Cullen’s mouth before he could stop it.  “_What?_”  He sat down hard.  “You’re joking.”

“I said no.”  She grimaced.  “Not that it wasn’t something I’d considered, but...I never thought that the clan would go for it.  Considering that she is human.”

Zevran had stopped cleaning his blade, instead shifting Cerys in his arms protectively.  Cullen wondered if he’d even realized he’d done it.  “Do you know what prompted the offer?”

The mage’s voice went flat.  “Evidently, the Keeper’s predecessor spoke to several of the hunters in the forest.  More meddling, I assume.  The keeper isn’t quite convinced that Cerys belongs with them, but she really wants to believe that it was Marethari.  Maker’s _Balls_, I will be glad when we’re away from here.”

“You considered fostering her out?” Ilse asked.  

The rest of them stilled, holding their breaths as the look on Kathil’s face darkened.  “I did.”  Then she looked at Cerys, asleep in Zevran’s arms.  “Perhaps it isn’t fair to drag her through this life with me.  But she will be in danger no matter what, and I prefer to have her where I can protect her.”  She smiled thinly.  “Besides.  Andraste help the person who tries to take her from me.”

There was something dark in her voice, something heavy and sharp.  Watching her, Cullen could very well believe that this mage would set the world aflame—or bring down the Chantry itself—in order to protect their daughter.  He didn’t know if he was glad, or a bit afraid.

_Probably both._ __

“Good,” Ilse said, and there was no mistaking the approval in her tone.  “Now, Warden, I think you should try to get some rest.”  She looked meaningfully at the tent where she’d thrown her pack earlier.  

“Probably not a bad idea.  My back feels like Sten’s been using it for hammer practice.”  She got up, stretched briefly, and held out her arms.  Zevran got up and handed her the baby, who woke and started making little _ah ah ah_ noises.  “We’ll head out in the morning.”

She retreated to her tent, and they all sat listening to the sounds of the Dalish camp settling in for the night.  They prepared a scanty meal; the hunters brought them a brace of rabbits, but they gave those to the Mabari.  One by one they retired to their tents; Ilse to the tent she shared with Ser Rylock, Jowan to his own.    That left Zevran and Cullen by the fire, along with the dogs.

From an aravel across the clearing came music, a pair of pipes playing counterpoint to each other, a voice winding around the two of them.  It reminded Cullen of evenings spent in the Chantry orphanage.  Several of the Sisters sang, and a few more played the pipes or the rebec.  On nights when the work of the day was done, sometimes they could cajole the Sisters into playing for them.  

Zevran nudged him with an elbow.  “The look on your face, Templar, it tells me that you have missed music.”

“There wasn’t very much in the Tower,” he said.  (Though, why?  Certainly there was leisure to study music, and the long nights in the Templar hall might have been good times to practice.  There was just something about the cold stone, and the dark water of Lake Calenhad, that drowned out even the sweetest voice.)  

The assassin had a pensive look on his face.  “Some of the women in the whorehouse would sing, in the afternoons before the customers began to arrive.  There was very little music after the Crows bought me.  Just what I could steal as a hungry ear in the street.  I would stand sometimes by the walls of noble gardens, straining my ears for the sound of the young ladies at their lyres.  They were all terrible, you must understand.  But it was music, of a sort.”

“You traveled with Leliana for, what, a year?” he asked.  “I can’t imagine she didn’t play for you.”

He shook his head.  “She mostly told stories, and hideously romantic ones at that..  Music carries, you see, and we were trying not to invite the darkspawn to our fire.  She did sing for us, once.  Well, for our Warden mostly, but the rest of us listened, no?  She had picked up an elven song somewhere, something Dalish.  Very sad, of course.  Most of their songs are.”  Zevran looked tired, and there was a trace of tension at the corners of his eyes.

They fell silent, listening to the music.  It had been a long winter spent in hiding, and he and Kathil hadn’t yet quite managed to fix things between them.  But they were more comfortable with each other than they had been, and the last of the shadows in Cullen’s mind had been swept away with the lengthening of the days.  He did not dwell on just how natural it felt to have a child around, how he sometimes wondered if she would look like the dream-daughter that the desire demon had ensnared him with.

That had been another life entirely.

When they slept that night, it was with Zevran between him and Kathil.  He woke in the morning with Cerys in his arms, the assassin and the mage curled together beside him.  He vaguely remembered being handed the baby after a middle-of-the-night feeding.

The infant yawned and opened her eyes, looking around her with a quiet though unfocused gaze.  And it was just as it should be, her small warmth against his chest, the two people he loved more than life beside him.

All was well.

*****

_Kathil:_

She stopped and gingerly stretched out one leg behind her, wincing as she felt the bones in her hips click and settle into place.  _I most sincerely do not recommend a twenty-mile walk just after giving birth._  She was healed, true, but her magic could only knit together torn and bleeding flesh, hasten some of the process of her body becoming accustomed to no longer being pregnant.  It could not tighten the cords between her bones or make her back hurt any less.  

At least they would be stopping in Little Oakford for a few days.  They were only a mile or two from the village now, and Ilse had promised there would be tea and a comfortable chair and possibly even a bath.  Probably they’d sleep in someone’s empty hayloft, and get used to having more people around than just them.  

And maybe she would have a chance to get used to having her daughter out in the world.  _My daughter.  Such a strange thought, still._  It seemed impossible that this _person_ had only a few days ago been resting in the cramped quarters below Kathil’s heart.  Even more impossible that she was healthy and had taken to eating with a vengeance—as Kathil’s sore breasts were constantly reporting.  _You two will be all right,_ Ilse had said.  _You both need time to adjust, but you’re doing well._

Her moods were prone to change with the winds, but she was happy, she thought.  Also a touch sad, and a bit overwhelmed, but she was a Grey Warden, and she had ended a _Blight_.

Surely, motherhood couldn’t be any harder than that?

They passed a stone carved with swooping lines—a Dalish waymarker.  They were almost to the ford that gave Little Oakford its name.  A branch of the Drakon River meandered through this countryside, and became wide and shallow just ahead.  

“You all right?” Cullen asked, stopping next to her.  Jowan had Cerys at the moment, but they all had been trading off baby-carrying duty.  “You look a bit peaky.”

“I will be with a bit of a rest.  Let’s get across the ford and into town.”  She probably should sit down, but that cup of tea was calling her name.  The Dalish didn’t go in for non-medicinal tisanes, and they had used the last of theirs yesterday morning.  

He nodded, and stepped away.  She straightened and took a step—and stumbled, going off-balance.  Cullen caught her arm as she tried to recover, and she ended up clinging to his arm, feeling decidedly ungainly.  “Hey now,” Cullen said, taking both of her shoulders and setting her upright once more.  “Are you _sure_ you’re all right?”

She sagged against his hands, her head dropping forward briefly.  “Just tired, and my balance isn’t what it should be.”  She sternly told her knees that they had a _job_ to do and by Andraste they would _do_ them, and glanced at Cullen, ready to tell him that she was _fine_ and she didn’t need him to hold her up.

She’d been so overwhelmed with becoming a mother that until this moment she hadn’t noticed that they had slipped once again into that sphere of comfort with each other that she reserved only for people she loved.  And from the look on his face, Cullen hadn’t quite realized it either.

_Oh sweet Andraste.  I thought we’d settled this—_

But they hadn’t, had they?

Cullen let go of her shoulders, and stepped back.  “Let’s get to the ford,” was all he said.  He took the lead, and she dropped back to walk next to Jowan.  They crossed the river barefoot, the icy water soaking them to the knees and leaving Kathil feeling as though thin needles made of cold were lancing through her feet.  She took Cerys from Jowan, letting him pull his socks and boots on.  “I think those socks are more hole than thread,” she told him.  

“There’s only so many times you can darn socks before they start falling apart.”  He shoved his foot into a boot and began to lace it up.  Cerys was beginning to fret, and Kathil bounced on the balls of her feet, trying to calm her.  “I may have to see if I can pick up a few more pairs.  Didn’t you say that we could probably beg hospitality from the banns on the way?”

“That’s my hope, or this is going to be a long, hungry walk north,” she said.  In truth, she was not looking forward to being dependent on the generosity of the nobility whose lands they were going to pass through.  _Perhaps we can pick up some odd jobs here and there.  There’s usually postings on the Chanter’s Board for folk like us._  

Folk like them.  A crew of innocents and fools, indeed.  

“Well, it might be stables and scraps, but it’s better than many see,” Jowan said.  Then he reached for his other boot, and scowled.  “Where—hey, _mutt!_  Bring that _back!_”  Fiann had stolen Jowan’s other boot, and she bounded away with it, bouncing lamblike into the trees at the side of the road.  Cullen, laughing, ran after her, and they had a grand game of keepaway before the Templar finally convinced Fiann to give Jowan back his boot.  The boot was only a little the worse for wear.  “At least the drool spots make sort of a nice pattern with the mud,” Jowan grumbled.

Lorn snorted at the pup, amused.  Then he came to Kathil and nudged her hip.  When she bent down, he snuffled Cerys, evidently wanting to make sure she was all right.  Then they were walking again, and it was but a bit of a skip to the village proper.

Little Oakford looked like so many other villages scattered through Ferelden—a collection of stone and thatch houses, fences made of whatever materials were handy, a little chantry down at one end to see to the spiritual needs of the residents.  Ilse directed them towards one of the larger houses on the green, striding ahead and calling “Margarey!  We’re back!  Put the kettle on, we have guests!”

There was an excited squeak from inside the house, and then a blur emerged as the door slammed open.  A woman—Kathil guessed that this was Margarey—wrapped herself around Ilse.  She was dressed in a much-patched dress and apron, her light hair braided nearly back.  And she looked familiar, somehow.  

“I’m so glad to see you, Ilse!”  Margarey hadn’t let go of the midwife.  “Everyone’s lambs are all going to drop all at once I think, and the cow on the Vercel farmhold is looking to come early, and Jalena has been having false labor and she’s in here twice a day and oh _Maker_ I didn’t know how I was going to manage by myself!”

Ilse hugged the girl.  “Glad to see you too, Margarey.  You’d have managed, you’re a smart girl.  Go on, then, put the kettle on and let me find somewhere to stash these Grey Wardens.”

“Wardens—!”  Margarey seemed to see them for the first time.  “Oh, _no_.  Ilse, there’s been news from the north...”  She trailed off, pressing her lips together.  “The Grey Wardens have burned Amaranthine.  The rider didn’t give us any more details, just said that it was an Orlesian who was in command.  Hilbert and Gloa’s oldest lived there.  They don’t think he made it out.”

They all traded uneasy glances.  Zevran stepped a bit closer to Kathil, his expression darkening.  Ilse folded her arms.  “Well.  I suppose you all had best come inside, then.”

They followed the midwife into the house.  Kathil felt a bit ill, and not only from the effects of walking so far so soon after giving birth.

_The Grey Wardens have burned Amaranthine._

Was it still Laurens in command, or was it one of the others?  And _why_ would they have decided to burn a city?

She was settled into a chair, blankets tucked around her, voices coming and going.  She held onto Cerys and tried to be a still point in the world, holding on to her clarity of mind with an effort of will, Tower-trained discipline a bulwark against exhaustion and horror.

They had thought to make a leisurely spring trip of their travel to Vigil’s Keep.  Now, though—

They would have to hurry.

Kathil held her infant daughter and tried not to wonder about what sort of world she had brought her into.

*****

_Lorn:_

He lies next to Fiann beside a warm fire.  The human pup is beside him, cradled in the dust-knight’s breastplate and wrapped in blankets to keep her warm.  His human is arguing with her packmates, her sharp voice rising, but it is not a serious snarling; it is only that she is tired, and still sore from having her pup.  He is not concerned.

A human comes and sits near to him, craning her neck to see the pup next to Lorn.  This is her territory they are on, hers and the human who came to help his human with her pup, the human who smells of sweetgrass and gruff kindness.  This human offers her hand to Lorn, who sniffs her fingers gravely.  She is bird feathers and rabbit fur and woodsmoke, with just the slightest tinge of lightning at the very back.  “I hope they stop shouting soon,” the feather-human says quietly to him.  “You don’t look bothered.”

He sets his head down on his paws and gives her a single tail-wag.  Next to him, Fiann breathes in deeply, then snores.  The pack would snarl and then subside, decide nothing, and tomorrow it would be well again and they would travel.  Because traveling is a fine thing.

“So I hear,” the feather-human says.  At the table, his human sighs and declares that she needs some sleep.  The sweetgrass-human made the others in this territory give them some soft things to sleep on, and there is a bustling about as they all prepare to sleep.  

Lorn likes this territory.  He did not like the territory of the elves, where everyone stared and nobody stopped to pet him and tell him what a magnificent dog he is.  

Their loss, he supposes.  But so sad, that they lost the opportunity!

His human’s elf comes and drops down beside the feather-human.  He smells wary, and because of that Lorn lifts his head.  Sometimes very interesting things happen when his human’s elf smells like that.

But he is only speaking to the feather-human.  “You have people, yes?” he asks.  “In the area?”

The feather-human shakes her head.  “My people are from the south,” she says.  “We fled the darkspawn when the blight came.  Mama and Papa died in one of the attacks, and my sister Evvy and I got separated in Lothering.  I don’t know what happened to her, if she ever made it home.  If there’s a home to make it back to.”  The feather-human reaches out to scratch Lorn behind the ears.  “Funny.  Mama always bragged that one of her sisters had married one of the northern banns, that it made us almost nobility.  Evvy always wanted to go see if it was true.  Some day, I might go north.  She’s probably up there, somewhere.”

The elf’s scent has shifted, tinged with a confusion of sorrow and anger.  “Your...aunt, yes?  The one who married the noble?  Did anyone ever tell you her name?”

“Amell, Mama always said.  It’s not an uncommon name.  Still.”  The feather-human’s fingers curl in the fur of Lorn’s neck.  Her voice is very quiet.  “The woman Warden, she looks like my sister.”

“Mages are made to forget their lives before the Tower.  She would not remember a thing, even if there were a blood connection.”  His voice is light, but his scent speaks of deep trouble.  Lorn is confused; where is the danger?  He shifts to look at his human’s elf, at his long hair and the dark marks on the side of his face.  The elf’s countenance tells him nothing.

But whatever the message is, the feather-human has understood it.  “I know,” she says in a small voice, small as a mouse or a speck of dust.  “But, still.  If the baby ever needs a place to go...”

“She could do worse than here, no?  I will tell her, if it comes to that.”  The elf’s voice warms.  “But somehow, I do not think it will come to that.  She is a woman of great will and greater determination, is our Warden.”  He gets to his feet, unfolding himself upward.  Lorn once thought all elves stood like that, with their weight perfectly centered and something Lorn might call grace, but after seeing many elves he has determined that it is peculiar to his human’s elf.  “And now, I believe our bed calls to me.  Good night, sweet Margarey.”

The feather-human nods, and pets Lorn’s head once more before getting to her feet.  She climbs a ladder into a shadowed space beneath the rafters and vanishes.  Lorn, after determining that nothing interesting is going to happen after all, puts his head down on his paws.

Lorn dozes, guarding his human’s pup.  He will keep her safe; he will keep _all_ of them safe.

He _will._

*****

Here ends _Quiet Foxes,_ Part Four of _Old Roads_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sort of can't believe I am finally done with Quiet Foxes! Believe it or not, I originally planned for this installment to only be eight chapters long. Instead, it decided to be novel-length, and Pitiless Games, the next installment, is definitely going to be novel-length and then some.
> 
> I'm taking a break before I plunge into Pitiless Games; I have some deadlines I have to beat into submission, and I have some background material I need to compose for the next section. Look for Old Roads to continue sometime around the end of August or the beginning of September. This would be a good time to put me on alert if you'd like to know when the next installment is coming out. If we're all really lucky, I might actually finish this series before DA2 comes out. :)
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for all of your kind words about this work, all the reviews and alerts and favorites. This is a crazy thing I'm doing, my love letter to the world that Bioware built and is generous enough to let us play in.
> 
> Pitiless Games will take place mostly in and around Vigil's Keep and Amaranthine, and yes, we'll get to see Nathaniel and Sigrun and Velanna and Oghren. Anders will show up again, and we'll get to find out exactly how the Chantry reacts to the Hero of Ferelden becoming a public figure again—this time, with an infant in tow. (In one word: badly.)
> 
> Anyway, thank you all again, and see you in a few weeks!


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